he's blinding but you can't look away
by JaguarCello
Summary: Remus Lupin - new English teacher, wearer of extraordinary jumpers, pub quiz winner - and Sirius Black - ill-articulated scandulous past, wearer of leather jackets, Physics teacher - are going to have quite a year. Lily Evans has given James Potter a quest, and it won't be easy: to coach the football team to some sort of victory, to put on an incredible school play, and to get the
1. Chapter 1

"There's something about September, isn't there? I just want to listen to Vampire Weekend and wear horrible jumpers," Sirius said brightly to the woman behind the till in Smiths. She looked at him for a second too long, scanned his whiteboard pens and shoved them into a bag.

"The bag's an extra penny," she said, and waited for him to extract the necessary cash from his pocket. He found a crumpled tenner, which she took as it would stain her fingers.

"Despite my youthful good looks," he went on, and she sent him a look that could shatter glass at twenty paces. Unpeturbed, he pressed on. "I am a teacher – so are there any _discounts_ you could apply for a beleaguered civil servant? I provide all my own printer paper and I never get paid back, actually, which wouldn't bother me except that Snape manages somehow to claim all his back, even if all he does is use it to try to prove Fermat's Last Theorem, which is actually – "

"You owe me £1.25," she said, and waited in silence for him to dig around in his other pocket. With a triumphant air, he found the money, and she gave him a pale imitation of a smile and a load of discount vouchers. "Have a nice day…" she managed, before conclusively ignoring him.

He gathered his carrier bags, and headed home. The leaves were falling thick and fast now, and the gutters were overflowing, and as he got home it started to rain.

"James!" he yelled up the stairs. James poked his head over the railings on the landing, hair dripping.

"Just got out the shower," he said. "It's playing up again, keeps going from ball-boilingly hot to so cold that I now worry if I can have children - but it's an adventure, isn't it? That's what the landlord said when I phoned him to complain, anyway. You been off on your annual pilgrimage?" He eyed the bags with trepidation.

"Yup," said Sirius. "I have: whiteboard pens of many colours, printer paper, spare pens, spare pencils, a few spare clear pencil cases for exams, a spare scientific calculator, and a shedload of protractors," and he rummaged in the bag. "Oh, and some rulers, in case the little horrors forget theirs or bend them to see how shatterproof they are, you know. They should make the rulers bloody _snap-proof_ , that's what I think, then what will the kids do? Probably something horrific involving bodily fluids, actually – "

"How much of your food budget for this week has gone on stationery?" James said, coming down the stairs. His glasses were still steamed up from the shower, and he was wearing his oldest pair of trackies and a t-shirt.

"Well, if you think about it, surely money is a _construct_. Ninety-nine percent of all our money isn't real, tangible money – it's just numbers on a screen," Sirius said, edging the receipt out of sight.

"How much?" James asked again, and Sirius was reminded that he could be fearsome in the classroom, should any pupil forget who fought whom at the Battle of Bosworth. He shrugged.

"Just over eleven quid," he said. "But, you know how I get in September! Even before I'd started teacher training I bought all that stuff in September! It's the marketing. I am a poor, poor victim of the might of the people who make those pens where you can click them to get different colours," and he took a sip of the tea James had passed to him. "I have a problem, James," and James snorted.

"Well, I suppose – if it's a _problem_ – all I can do is support you. Although I will be having those whiteboard pens off you. Year nine are doing World War One this term and the simple red, green, blue and black simple won't be a large enough range of colours. And also, ooh, I could have for example purple as the Austria-Hungarian Empire, and then red for Austria and blue for Hungary when we learn about stuff like the treaty of Trianon and the post-war squabbles – " He broke off, breathing heavily.

"And you wonder why you don't have a girlfriend, you nerd," Sirius said, and he leaned over to ruffle his hair.

Once Sirius had his glittery gel pens, the first day of term couldn't come soon enough. He and James went up to the school and spent a glorious few hours decorating their classrooms. James's classroom was surprisingly well organised, with huge maps of the world and the various alignments of the countries, and pictures of the battles and bloodshed and Blitzes surrounding the maps. Sirius's had started off neat – beautiful star-charts, nebulae, diagrams of nuclear reactors, a circuit up on the wall that, when lit, somehow endeavoured to explore Newton's Second Law of Motion – but it had become less neat as soon as Peter showed up and threw him a packet of glow-in-the-dark stars, which were now everywhere.

Peter's classroom was bright and cheery, much like Peter, although also like Peter it showed a slightly worrying tendency to wobble under pressure: his enormous model of the Earth, right down to its core, was crumbling with the weight of the papier-maché. James went with him to find some sort of solution, and James suggested the chemistry lab for that – "it's all solutions in there. Or like, solvents. I forget which" – and off they went. Lily Evans – red-headed, brilliant scientist, always setting off the fire alarms – was decorating her room. She had stolen what looked like _large_ amounts of coloured paper from Peter to make her litmus indicator, and had put a vast periodic table on the wall.

"Hello," she said.

"Hi," said Peter. James just squeaked. "Erm, we came here because I was wondering if you had something I could use to hold up my model of the Earth. It's collapsing in on itself."

"Well," she said, running her hands through her beautiful hair, "we wouldn't want that, would we?" she asked James, turning her green eyes on him like a cat that has spotted a particularly ineloquent yet tempting mouse.

"No," James managed. "There are definitely some people who should collapse in on themselves, they're so dense – Snape, for one – "

She blinked, very slowly. "Snape is my friend," she said, coolly. "And he's not an arrogant berk, unlike some. And he doesn't go _on and on_ about his school football career and then fail to lead the team to any sort of victory, and nor does he think he can charm the birds from the trees – "

"I'm not – the football thing wasn't my _fault_ , it was raining and I couldn't see the pitch so to be honest it's a miracle the team even got to the right place, and then that scrawny one twisted an ankle and our only goal-scorer fell over him, and really – "

"I'd like you to go now," said Lily. "Maybe if you can, oh, coach the football team so that they actually win something, and do a decent school play that will get some talent scouts in for the drama kids, and get the best results your subject has ever seen in this school – maybe I will listen to your pithy excuses," and James fled.

"Right, mate," said Peter. "So, you got shot down in flames, ha ha Battle of Britain references – and I failed to get help with my bloody model, and – _shit_!" he ended, as he came round the corner and collided with a solid object on two legs, sending them both skittering to the floor like skittles. "I'm so sorry," he said, and sat up, massaging his shoulder.

"Not to worry," said the solid lump, which turned out to be a man their age, holding a large box of books. "Shakespeare has claimed many victims," and he pulled Peter up to standing. "I'm Remus – the new English teacher. I'm trying to find my classroom, but it seems to have been taken over by maths – "

"Ah," said James. "Yes, Snape, the meglomaniacal maths teacher, was supposed to be next to Physics this year. But he refused to go anywhere near Sirius and has stolen your classroom, which means you are now next to me! I'm James, I teach History and occasionally Classics if we get an interested kid," and he shook Remus's hand.

"I'm Peter, I teach Geography. I'm on the other side of James, so you'll be in between James and Sirius. The classroom layout doesn't make much sense any more, since Snape decided to get back at Sirius for the pub quiz incident – don't ask," he said, and Remus nodded sagely. "Do you like pub quizzes?" Peter asked.

"I love them," said Remus. Sirius emerged from his classroom, and stalked over to them.

"Bloody stars have stopped glowing in the dark – I hope you've not provided me with shitty children's amusement items, Peter. Did you steal them again? Really, not your best trait, you'll never get that barmaid to shag you if you keep stealing from her neighbouring shops – oh, hello," he said, catching sight of Remus. "You're new."

"I'm Remus. English teacher, which explains the hideously heavy books – "

"Do you want – do you want me to take them?" said Sirius, frightening himself. "I mean, that box is about to split – " and with that, twenty copies of _Hamlet_ poured forth from the now-gaping box. James grabbed Peter and they retreated to Humanities, but Sirius got to his knees and started gathering up the books.

"It's a load of wanky bollocks, isn't it? Shakespeare?" he said, and then remembered that this man, with his slightly wild hair and his loose tie, had at least one degree in English. "I mean, it's – not my cup of tea," and he stood up, arms full of _Hamlet_. "But Hamlet and Horatio were definitely shagging," and Remus laughed at that.

"Speaking of cups of tea," he said, as they put the books on his desk, "would you like one? Only I've rather repurposed the area outside the fire exit – " and he opened the fire exit door and went round the corner to find an old picnic bench under an umbrella, and an ashtray, "and made it into my bolthole. There were all these gaps in the walls and so I can keep my books in there, and my cigarettes, and come out here for a quick break when the children can't see me," and he smiled.

"I'm dying for a cigarette, actually," said Sirius. "Would you – could I pinch one? I'll return the favour, first day of term! This whole setup is rather marvellous, although I dread to think what health and safety would think – but then, actually, we're smoking on concrete, blah blah. The children can't see us do it, and that's the main thing," and he lit his cigarette and took a drag, leaning back slightly to look at how the clouds moved against the blue sky.

"You teach Physics, right?" asked Remus. "I heard we're next door to each other this year, some sort of shenanigans with the maths teacher – "

"Oh yeah, he's a wanker," said Sirius. "He's in love with Lily – Evans, the chemistry teacher? She reminds me of a Viking shieldmaiden, that fierce and that lovely. But Snape is a nasty sort, the kind who'll pick the weakest kid in the class to work out hideous algebra on the whiteboard, and then sneer at them until they cry a little, and then sneer at them _more_ for crying. Complaining doesn't seem to do anything – Dumbledore's a great headteacher, but he's got a blind spot where Snape's concerned," and he took another drag.

"And James – James is in love with Lily?" Remus said, slowly. "I mean, she made me a cup of tea – we both got here early – and she was saying he's a complete idiot around his friends but when it's just the two of them in the staff room or wherever he's such a different person. But – "

"You're very sharp when it comes to people," Sirius said, wondering if Remus had realised he was gay yet. "Yeah, he's liked her since we started here, three years ago. He made the fatal error of bragging loudly about how good he was at pub quizzes, and since then she's beat us every time. And then whenever we give assemblies we have to get the words to the chorus of her choice of bad song into the assembly, as a forfeit."

"She sounds slightly terrifying," Remus said, blowing a beautiful smoke-ring that drifted across the field before disappearing somewhere above the hockey pitch. "Anything else I should know about the teachers? Or, for that matter, the pupils?"

Sirius grinned. "Well, there's Peter, who is easily led astray. Lily once persuaded him he would look good in eyeliner, and then it rained. I mean, he did look good in the initial eyeliner, but after the rain – "

"So, don't go telling Peter to jump in any fires, because he just might do it?" Remus asked, flicking æ onto the concrete with a practised air. "And don't be in love with Lily, in case James has my guts for garters. And don't make friends with Snape, and don't be on your team in pub quizzes – "

"Actually," Sirius said, hit by a sudden flash of inspiration. "Actually it's, erm, school rules that the newcomer must join the team with the most losses that term so far. And it being the start of term, we must look back to last term, in which the only question we got right was about cooking, and that's only because Peter is legendary amongst the staff for his Victoria Sponge. So, yeah, you're on our team," and Remus grinned.

"I'd better get revising then," and he sent his cigarette butt spinning to the ground.

The first day of term was bright and crisp, and the playground was crammed with children terrified about starting secondary school, trailing their older siblings; children cocky and confident about their GCSEs, teenagers having secret smokes behind the biology building, the occasional parent, and the teachers, trying to look as if they had already memorised their classes for that year.

The bell rang for first lesson, and the milling became a scream as the younger years sprinted for their form rooms, enormous backpacks bumping along with them; the pavement soon emptied, apart from the odd louche sixth-former still smoking as they wandered into A2 French, holding hands with their boyfriend or girlfriend.

Sirius looked around at his class. His form were Year Ten this year, about to do their GCSEs and convinced that at fourteen they knew everything there was to know about life.

"Sir," said Rebecca, who had been a menace last year. "Sir, are you still single?"

Sirius sighed. Being young and handsome – as Dumbledore once described him – endeared him to some of the girls, but many more of them had developed crushes on him to the point that he once found what looked like some sort of voodoo doll hidden in the spare paper drawer, with his hair and his stubble, and pins in its heart. "Rebecca, that's none of your business," he said, and turned to the register. "Right you lot, you know the drill. If you're not here don't answer, and don't answer for anyone else," and he read off the list. He had lost a few this year, gone to private schools, but most of them were still there.

"Right, this year is when some of you will do your GCSEs, and some of you will be doing them next year. Actually, some of you have already done yours, but anyway – who in here is doing GCSE Physics?" Around half the room put their hands up.

"Well, congratulations, you'll be seeing a lot more of me – "

"I'd love," said Rebecca, "to see a lot more of you," and so he gave her a warning, her second of the day already.

"One more warning," he said, "and you'll be up before Professor McGonnogall, and she is especially terrifying this morning because one of the Year Sevens seems to be completely unregistered – "

"Sir," said Miles from the back of the room. "A star just fell on me," and he pointed at his desk, which would indeed now glow in the dark.

"Well, make a wish or something, Miles," said Sirius. The bell rang. "Go on you lot, off to wherever it is you're meant to be, any problems come and find me, no smoking, no lewd behaviour – "

The first few weeks passed without incident, and it was the first week of October when Remus knocked on Sirius's door. "Hi," he said. "I was wondering when this pub quiz is going to happen? My housemate has got herself a new girlfriend, which is lovely – she cooks great vegetarian food – but they are, erm, very _loud_ , and to be honest I'd rather do my marking in the pub with a pint than in my bedroom with my ear plugs," and Sirius laughed and beckoned him in.

"It's lunchtime," he said. "Shouldn't you be eating lunch?"

"Shouldn't you?" asked Remus. "Alas, I am eating my sandwiches and marking essays on _A Death in Venice_ , and none of the little shits seem to have any idea of the meaning of the word _allegory_ and seem to think they can ignore that part of the question," and he shrugged. "And, erm, I said that the Tolkien Society could use my classroom as a base for their wizardry and I don't want to leave them on their own."

Sirius blinked at him. "What?" Remus said. "I like Lord of the Rings," and he rolled his sleeve up to show Sirius a tattoo, wrapping round his forearm. "It's from _Beren and Luthien_ , but I shan't tell you what it means just yet," and he rolled his sleeve back down. Sirius kept blinking at him.

"I need a smoke," he said, and he had already found their bolt-hole and lit the cigarette by the time Remus had caught up with him. "Sorry," he said, as Remus approached. "I just – I like Lord of the Rings, as well, erm, and the tattoo – "

"I'm glad you like it," said Remus. "I have quite a few tattoos, some more meaningful than others, but I keep them covered at school. Something about them being alternative. When I was younger, I had my tongue pierced, but I took it out when I started teacher training," and he shrugged, and lit his own cigarette.

"The school would frown on them, if they knew," said Sirius. "Mind you, I went to a Catholic boarding school when I was seven, and _that_ was strict. If you parted your hair on the wrong side you'd be beaten. I was beaten quite a lot, but they finally threw me out when I was fifteen – they'd caught me, erm, in the showers. It was after we had had rugger in the rain, and he had tackled me, and I had, you know, noticed. And well, they threw me out. I barely had time to get my trousers back on before I was being marched to the headmaster's office. He was the maths master's son, so he was alright, but I had to go – even though my father was on the board of governors. I had been caught too many times – " He tailed off, and took a long drag. "I never went to mass again. Persuaded my father that my, ah, proclivities were simply the result of being beaten if we went near a girl, and he seemed to want to believe me – that time at least."

Remus looked out across the fields. The trees on the fringes of the hockey pitch were just beginning to show their bones, and the clouds were drifting lazily across the sky. "It'll be a harvest moon tonight," he said, and Sirius smiled, and knew he had been listened to and understood, and told Remus about the moons of Jupiter.

The bell rang. Sirius thought about Remus's tattoos all afternoon.

The pub that they always went to was busy that night, crammed with teachers and the odd pupil who had yet to realise they had gone to the wrong place; Sirius told them how to get to the Wetherspoons, and they usually blushed, muttered something, finished their pint and fled. He sat down next to James, with his bike helmet under his arm. "My round?" he said, and Peter nodded.

"Yeah, but be quick – we've got about ten minutes. Remember Remus is coming as well, and you have to save him a seat! _And_ get him a drink, since you love him and all – " he muttered. Sirius pointedly ignored that last bit, and went to get the drinks in.

"Alright Rosmerta," he said, nodding to the barmaid. "You get more and more beautiful every time I see you – "

"It's a new bra, not that that's your area of expertise. But thanks. How's teaching? I sometimes wish I'd stuck at it, and then I remember that I hate children and have little patience with anyone. Actually, what're you having to drink?"

"Pint of bitter, pint of cider, glass of your plonkiest merlot, and – Remus!" he said, turning slightly.

"Remus isn't a drink," Remus said, eyes glinting. "Amaretto and Coke, please," he said to Rosmerta.

"I'll get that one," said Sirius, swiftly, shoving a tenner across the bar. "Cheers love," he added, and nodded at Remus. "Grab those pints," and they made their way over to their table.

"I'll get the next round in," said Remus, as they sat down. "Do we have the answer sheet and the pencil? Is it sharp?" He elbowed Sirius. "Stop laughing – this is serious," and Sirius laughed more.

"Oi, Black," said James. "I thought we agreed you can't laugh at any puns anyone makes about your _stupid_ name. I mean, who the fuck calls their kid that? Like, I've met your parents, right, and they're relics. I'm surprised they're not yet fossilised. And I bet it was no surprise that you ended up doing a degree in _astrophysics_ with a poncey name like that – "

"Ladies, gentlemen, teachers of various genders!" called Dumbledore, standing on the bar. He was wearing a hideous purple velvet suit, with a greenish shirt. "We are gathered here today, in the Three Broomsticks, this _haven_ , we happy few, we band of brothers – "

"Christ, he's completely pissed," said Remus, sharpening the pencil very quietly.

"Welcome to the pub quiz!" managed Dumbledore.

"Every year," James confided to Sirius, "he bigs it up more and more, until the whole school is excited. And every year the first question is the same – "

"Question one!" called Dumbledore. "Who wrote _Le Morte Darthur_?"

There was a slightly shocked silence. Sirius saw Lily frowning, and whispering something in Snape's ear. Remus wrote something down, smiling slightly smugly. It was a good look on him.

"What the fuck is going on?!" hissed Peter. "The first question is _always_ : what is the name of the character played by Julia Roberts in _My Best Friend's Wedding_?"

"Maybe this year will be different," said Sirius. "Maybe this is the year we all, like, learn to read books. Maybe he's hinting at something? To do with the standard of our teaching? It's not my fault that year eight girl started crying about the eventual fate of the universe. It is very scary," and he drank his wine and wished the smoking ban had never happened.

"Or maybe," said Remus, "We should all wait and see," and he flashed a quick smile at Sirius.

Questions two to nine – touching on subjects as diverse as Phoebe and Mike's brother's triplets' names in Friends, Anglo-Irish lords of the thirteenth century, chemical compounds, distant stars, the evolution of the English language, and showjumping – passed without too many howls of outrage from the amassed teachers, but question ten was diversive.

"The scores – this is incredible! – the Marauders have nine points. And the Funsponges also have nine. I sense someone fiddling with the names of the teams, actually, as you both started off as Team One and Team Two, respectively." Dumbledore took a gulp of wine. "Question ten, and we're neck and neck! In which country was JRR Tolkein born? That's not "brought up", Mr. Black, because you will inevitable start yelling about Birmingham. We don't care about it, and just because you went to university there – oh, do you all have the answer?" He took another gulp of wine.

Remus was sat frozen, pencil snapped in two. "I know this, it's South Africa. It's South Africa," he said, and Sirius put a supportive hand on his shoulder. They handed their papers to Dumbledore, who half-punched the air, half wobbled.

"You're both right! You're both right – South Africa, yes, yes. So, the only thing to do now is a tiebreaker, as I imagine you won't want to share the trophy, or indeed the forfeit," and he blinked a few times, as if plucking the question from his mind; perhaps he was. "We'll go for another Tolkien one, actually. Which Old English word, depicted as a word of the language of Rohan, means "horse" in both languages?"

There was a sudden pause, and then Remus seized the shard of pencil, scrawled something, and in his haste to get to the front tripped and fell into Sirius's lap. Sirius felt his stomach swoop, and no sooner had he registered this emotion as _lust_ Remus had gone again, and Dumbledore smiled, and they had won the pub quiz and it was because of brilliant, beautiful Remus Lupin with his tattoos and his clever fingers, lithe and nimble as he rolled his cigarettes –

"Sirius," James said, clicking his fingers in front of Sirius's face. "You're staring," and Sirius came to and ducked his head slightly, blushing. "We only bloody won, though," and he turned and yelled across the pub. "Hey Evans, how does it feel losing to a team which includes someone with the middle name _Orion_?"

"It's alright though," said Remus. "Sirius is a class traitor, so he might as well be called Ollie or something. Stanley Oliver Black. I don't think he, he who _voted Lib Dem in 2010,_ should be called Sirius," and he plonked a tray of drinks down. "Cider – here you go Peter, afraid they only had the fruit one. Bitter for you James, you strange creature with malfunctioning tastebuds. Sirius, your horrible cheap wine, and my lovely lovely Amaretto," and he stopped, having just noticed the round of shots on the table.

"Oh, apparently if you win, you get a round of shots. Peter picked tequila," James said, grinning wickedly.

"Oh _no_ ," said Remus.

"Oh yes," Peter said, shoving a shot glass towards him. "Bottoms up."

The tequila went down a treat, and three shots later – and the drinks Remus had bought – James and Sirius were standing on a table, swaying slightly, and singing _Livin' on a Prayer_. They were harmonising, impressively, but then Lily threw a bread roll at James and they were forced to seek refuge under the table.

Sirius wobbled, and clutched at a nearby knee for balance. "Oh sorry," he said to the knee, and then Remus's face appeared, grinning.

"I have ticklish knees, so I wouldn't do that unless you want your teeth kicked out," Remus told him, smiling sweetly. "Want to go for a smoke?"

Sirius sat up straight, almost hitting his head on the table. "Give me one minute to – extract myself," he said, and crawled out from under the table. A bread roll clipped his ear. "Run, Remus!" he said, and they did.

Sat on the wall outside in the brisk October evening air, they saw a black cat run in front of them. "Bad luck, that," said Sirius. "Do you ever think about how every year you pass the date of your death? I'm nearly twenty-six now, and it's just – almost twenty-six anniversaries of my death and I don't even know it. Maybe I'm just getting morbid because Halloween's approaching – Jeremiah in my year eight physics spent half an hour telling me about how the Book of Revelations can be linked to ghosties and ghouls – "

"You're pissed," said Remus, reasonably. He began to roll a cigarette, and Sirius tried not to watch too closely. "Why don't you roll, Sirius?" he asked.

Sirius shrugged. "Never got the hang of it, I s'pose," he said.

"Want me to show you?" Remus asked him, leaning in a little closer. "I'll teach you – give me your hands," he said, and Sirius duly presented him with his hands. "Okay, so first you get the tobacco you need – bit more – and yep, yeah, put it on the filter paper. Make sure the paper's the right way up. Then, you take it like this, roll it between your fingers like this – " he moved his hands onto Sirius's, and Sirius felt his touch all the way to his marrow – "until it's nice and smooth. Filter in, yeah, like that. Then lick the edge up to seal it – I used to do that with joints, no idea if it actually works too well on cigarettes – " and Remus adjusted the filter, rolled the cigarette, and licked along the seal. Sirius remembered what he had said about his tongue piercing, and felt his stomach swoop again, and had to bite his lip to stop himself from doing or saying something he might regret.

Remus handed him the cigarette, and shifted a little closer to him. "There you go," he said. "Spark up, it's cold."

"Want my jacket?" said Sirius, and he took off his leather jacket. "I'm not sure it'll go with your fluffy jumper," and Remus elbowed him and nodded his thanks, shoving has arms through the sleeves. It was a little too short for him.

"You know," said Sirius, lighting his cigarette. "You're – I'm really glad Snape stole your classroom. I'm really glad you're next to me in school, and next to me here. And I'm so glad we won the pub quiz! And I want – " he paused, looking at Remus, who looked back at him with eyes that had darkened in the gloom. "I want – " he said again, and Remus leaned in to kiss him, hand curling in his hair, and Sirius brought him closer with his hands on his own jacket collar, and then James came out the pub with Sirius's bike helmet under his arm, wobbling, and singing _Les Misérables_ under his breath.

"Time to go, lads," he said. "Come on Sirius, you can collect your bike tomorrow, you only came in on it today to show off – "

"Shut up," said Sirius, but it was true; they lived ten minutes' walk away. Remus stood up, brushing the damp from his trousers, and then turned to Sirius.

"Here's your jacket –"

"Keep it," said Sirius, quickly. "I live ten minutes away, I'll be fine – how're you getting home?"

"My flatmate is here to drive me – honestly, take the jacket, I'll feel terrible – "

Sirius shook his head. "It looks better on you, anyway. You can give it to me tomorrow," and then he blushed, replaying that last sentence in his head until the words warped.

"Come _on_ , Prince Charming," said James. "We're off, night Remus!"

Remus nodded slowly. "Night James, night Sirius. Hope you're not feeling too horrendous in the morning," and he walked back into the pub, wearing Sirius's too-small jacket. James and Sirius stood and watched him go.

"Fuck," they both said, as one.

"Did you – like, make sweet love under the moon? Or was it just gentlemenlike handjobs, inside the trousers for warmth?" James asked, as they turned homewards.

"None of that," said Sirius, as if his mind wasn't turning over those images in his head. "We didn't even kiss. Our hands did brush at one point as he was teaching me to roll – "

"You started rolling when you were sixteen, Sirius Orion Black," said James. "And it's only pretension that has driven you back to straights, you _tart_ – " and Sirius laughed.

"We almost kissed, I think," he said, as James fumbled with the key.

"Almost," James repeated. "Ah, was that when I interrupted you? I'm so sorry, fuck. Although you know he fancies you, and who wouldn't fancy him – I think I came over a little dizzy when he said goodnight to me, although my heart belongs to Lily. Dear God, did I tell you what she said to me when we were sorting out classrooms? She said if I lead the football team to success, run the school play, _and_ get the best history results Hogwarts has ever seen, I might be in with a chance," and Sirius hummed.

"She probably likes you then. I don't think she's the type to play games. It's a bit like a quest. Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table," said Sirius, and then he stopped. "Fuck," he said, as they climbed the stairs. "Mate – play idea – Knights of the Round Table. And Remus will get involved, because he loves all that ye olde literature shite. And Lily will see the romance of it all and fall in love with you! And the kids will like it. It can bring together the subjects! English and History can work on the script, Drama can do the acting bollocks, Physics and Art can do the sets and the lighting, French can… just sit in the back and wear a beret or something. Chemistry can work on all the little magicky bits in the story. Oh my God. This is _brilliant – "_ and he wrote a quick reminder on his phone, and then he passed out.

The next morning saw both James and Sirius wake up on the stairs, at twenty past eight. "Shit!" said James, hurling himself into the shower. Sirius made some coffee, took a couple of aspirin, and shoved all their stuff into their bags. As soon as James was out the shower – glasses steamed up again – he was downstairs. "I'll start on breakfast!" he yelled, and Sirius had the quickest shower of his life, neglecting even to condition his hair.

As they ate their eggs, the gravity of the night's events hit them. "We have a brilliant idea for a play," said Sirius. "And Remus almost kissed me, and Lily didn't try to hit you _once_ \- "

"I love the pub quiz," James said, as they jogged briskly down the road to school. "I _love_ the pub quiz, but we are never forgetting to set any alarms again, agreed?"

"Agreed," gasped Sirius, regretting his early-morning cigarette. "And we're not sleeping on the stairs either, because my neck feels like it's been rearranged by some sort of large, lumbering reptile."

They got into their classrooms just as the bell went, and by the time the pupils filed in, Sirius was breathing normally. That, however, went away as soon as he saw the note in the register.

"You lot," he said to his year tens, "stop chewing gum for a minute. It seems that the school board, in all their infinite wisdom, have decided to inspect us on Monday morning. We have a play to organise, and the football team – listen up, Jenkins – the football team have their big fixture – match, I don't know, I played rugby – next week as well. It'll have to be a tight ship," and the pupils stared at him.

"We'll have to stop – mucking around. No more heads down thumbs up. We will have to spend the morning doing educational stuff – "

"We've only got half an hour for form, sir," said Charlie, who was on the football team. "And my mum wants me to audition for the play – do you know anything more about it?"

"The play will look excellent on your applications to sixth form – oh yes, you have to not only get the grades to continue here, but also apply and be accepted – and if you lie about the dates a bit it'll look good on your university applications. Lots of my AS classes have expressed interest – "

"Morning Mr. Black," said Remus, poking his head round the door. "Just got this in the pigeonhole – we're to be doing King Arthur as the play. Good idea, actually – "

"When did I – when did I suggest this?" Sirius said, racking his brains.

"Ah, every member of staff received an email about it at I think four this morning. It was perfectly lucid up until the point at which you mentioned me – " and then Remus paused, to grin at him wickedly. "I can't tell you in front of the class. I'll show you at breaktime," and off he went, whistling.

Sirius stared after him. "Good god," he said, and then turned back to the class. "We're doing King Arthur. I'm sure you all know the story: he's destined to be king, the king who was and will be, and he grows up and unites England and stuff. And then his best mate shags his wife and it all goes rather downhill – "

"Sir," said Charlie, who was bound for somewhere like Cambridge. "I don't think that's quite as nuanced as it deserves." The bell rang.

Sirius could hardly wait for breaktime, and found himself gabbling through his lessons, and half-forgetting how to demonstrate the double-split experiment. Year Nine left physics slightly confused. At breaktime, he paced his classroom, fiddling with his tie, and then Remus appeared.

"So this email, then. I thought I put it as a reminder on my phone – "

"Oh no" said Remus, laughing. "You managed, in your drunken state, to not only enable the "Send to All" function, but also told everyone about how pretty my eyes were, which was lovely to read – "

"Oh no," said Sirius. "Oh no. Oh god, please, no. You're making this up, you must be," and he fell silent when Remus presented him with a printout of the email in question. Sirius read it in silence, whilst Remus snickered.

"It could be worse," he said. "At least you didn't talk about how much you wanted to kiss me last night, or how I was going to kiss you back. I mean, you could have mentioned how much you want to get on your knees for me, probably under my desk – "

Sirius made a strange keening sound, and Remus looked amused. "I shouldn't wind you up, I'm sorry, but that was just something James suggested I try. Are you – are you alright?" he added, as Sirius leant heavily on a desk.

"Fine," said Sirius. "Yep, fine, I just need to – " and he fled the room, rushing to the men's toilets. Luckily it was empty, and he shoved his trousers past his hips and stroked himself, biting the skin on his arm to stop himself from choking out Remus's name. He stood shaking, breathing too heavily to have been doing anything else, when the sheer _wrongness_ of what he had done hit him. "Fuck," he said, into the silence, and cleaned himself up as quickly as possible. When he looked in the mirror he saw the same old Sirius he always sow, but the mirror couldn't show him how his stomach flipped when Remus smiled at him, or how he would never forget the way his heart soared when Remus had raised an eyebrow and asked him if he was alright in the classroom. "Fuck," he said again, and went to find James.

"We've got ten minutes," James said to him, blowing a whistle. "Oi, Perkins! Kick the bloody ball, it's made of leather, it's already dead! Kick it!" and then turned to him. "You've been wanking, you weirdo," he said. Sirius counted to ten and wondered when it was that James had started being able to smell that on him, or was it his breathing, or was it his slightly flushed face?

"The play's on then," Sirius said instead of all this. "Remus came to see me, told me I emailed the whole school about his pretty eyes, or something. Fuck's sake – "

"Yeah yeah, but we also have the play. The quest! And I am halfway into shaping this lot to be a decent team, which is alright but we have a week. By the time of the finals, they'll be good enough to beat bloody Brazil, I reckon. And then it's just getting the results, and Lily will be mine. Oh, did Remus talk to you about blowjobs?" and James turned back to the game as if he hadn't just said the word "blowjob" on a school playground.

"Yeah, I should never have told you about Frank Longbottom, you _know_ I'm slutty and desperate –"

James grinned, wickedly. "That's why I told him to mention it. I didn't think you go and wank about it, just thought you'd think about it all day and do that squirmy thing you do when you're turned on in a public place. Which happens rather a lot, by the way. Score! Score, or are your legs turned to jelly? I think not, so get the bloody ball – yes! Yes, you beauties! Two up, bring it home," he bawled to the team.

"Okay, so the play. We've got the standard theatre kids, some of whom have been in the West End, and want to play all the roles. There's the kids whose mothers are making them do the play, for their CVs. There's the kids doing it for their CVs, and then people who want to try something new. Why they want to try anything new," Sirius said, "is anybody's guess. Like that time Perkins over there decided he wanted to make TNT in the classroom and poor Lily nearly lost her eyebrows, and her job. It's just unnecessary, really. Oh, and there's that inspection as well," he added.

"Fuck, yeah," said James. "I've heard it's that Umbridge woman. Never got into teacher training, so she wreaks revenge on anyone who won't toe the line. Some say she used to be a teacher, and was sacked for bullying a pupil. I imagine she'll get on rather well with Snape," he said. "Either way, it's not good."

The weekend was a flurry of preparation for observations: lesson plans checked to the last comma, classrooms disinfected, emails sent to parents to warn them. James and Sirius selected the best worker, the worst ("least able") student, and a few ones content to bob along in the middle from each class. They were battle-ready.

They saw her as soon as they walked into the staffroom that day. She was a small woman with smaller eyes, but a swollen face and neck. Her suit was pink and looked as though it had been in vogue at the coronation; her nails were the same colour, and as long as talons. "Hello," she said, in a high-pitched voice of the kind that people use when they talk to babies and fluffy animals. "I'm Dolores, and I'll be assessing you! We're going to get along so well, aren't we?"

Sirius blinked at her. Remus walked into him from behind, apologised, and then went towards his classroom, shooting Sirius a significant _look_ as he did so. Sirius followed Remus into the classroom.

"She'll hate us. Me because of the tattoos, the ambiguous sexuality and the not posh enough accent, and you for the motorbike, the unambiguous sexuality and the too posh accent. We can't win. But I wanted to say – " and he stepped a little closer – "would you fancy a drink sometime? Just me and you, not the Three Broomsticks. Maybe the Dog and Bacon? It's a little further from the school, and it has a lovely little pub garden, and – "

"Yes!" blurted Sirius. "I mean, I'd love to. Maybe after the inspection? And I want to have the play cast by February half-term, which I know is a term away but I'd love to get the script and stuff done by Christmas, which only gives us this week and then the winter term, really – "

Remus smiled at him. "What about this coming half-term then? We go for a drink, see how we enjoy it?"

Sirius grinned as widely as he had ever done. "I'd love that," he said.

The next lesson for Sirius was with some year twelves surly about having to unlearn all they had learned before. Even before he had said "Quantum physics!" he sensed the class were against him.

"Right, so we've always talked of the nucleus as being the smallest part of an atom. But that's not actually true – "

"Fuck's sake," said Perkins, as it it were a personal slight.

"Do you often allow swearing in your classes, Mr. Black?" said Umbridge, from where she was sat in the darkness of the astronomy corner. "I find it most distasteful, personally."

"We swear all the fucking time, Miss," said Perkins. Sirius resisted the urge to put his head in his hands, but he did clench his fists slightly.

Lunchtime could not have come sooner; he spent the time moodily smoking by the piles of leaves raked up by children given punishments. Remus saw him out there and waved, but Sirius couldn't face company; he waved back, but turned his back.

"Alright?" said Lily, walking towards him. Her boots were crunching in the leaves, and her hair was shining in the midday sun, bright against the brilliant blue sky. "Came to keep you company," and she smiled at him. He felt slightly dishonest, receiving such a beautiful smile, and so he smiled back and dragged his feet slightly and stood up.

"I've heard more about Umbridge," she said. "She's from that awful school board thingy that was set up in the fifties, and she works for a man called Riddle, and I'm sorry to use such language but she's almost certainly that nasty sort of Conservative who wants all the people who aren't white straight cisgender Middle England to be rounded up. The woman brought her own teapot with her. Her own _teapot_. It's disgusting," and she reached out for a drag of his third cigarette.

"Ah," said Sirius. "So – we're all slightly doomed, then? The company we keep, if not our own… defects. This feels so sordid. Like Pride. I am always so happy when Pride is over, so that I can go back to being ashamed – "

"Sirius," she said. "Riddle has built up a little conclave of – _followers_ , seems the only appropriate word. We've got a fight on our hands, if we want to pass this inspection at all," she added, grimly. She took another drag of his cigarette.

"Look, have a whole one," Sirius said, magnamoniously. "I know where Peter has hidden some scones – fancy one? There's jam and clotted cream and all, but I can't remember if people from Dorset have jam first or cream first. Shall we?" and he offered her his arm, as if it were a hundred years ago, and she smiled and took it and together they crunched through the leaves towards the staff room, smoking and laughing about nothing.

The staff room was busy. "We're all doomed," Peter announced to nobody in particular. "I remember Riddle – we used to have a student newspaper at university, and he, from whatever awful hole he lived in, used to spend all his energy on shutting us down. I think he did it at a few," and he ate a scone. Sirius couldn't see whether he had the jam or the cream on top.

"I remember his name, actually," James said slowly. "You're talking about the Phoenix? I didn't know many other unis had set up their own," and he added another sugar to his tea.

"We had one," said Remus. "The university hated it because it was about _corruption_ and that's the main way you get to become a professor: political secrets. And everything is political. A third-year, when I was a fresher, ran it with his brother. And then someone found out that Fabian was a trans guy and it was shut down. And here, we're going to have the same problem, probably. Like, how many of the staff here are at least straight?"

"I am," said Peter. There was a slight paused. "I think I am, anyway. Never challenged the default thinking and that, but yeah. I am fairly sure."

"That's great," said Sirius bracingly. "How in hell are we going to – pass this inspection? What would the Phoenix do? At my uni we just got high all the time and wrote stuff about the recent Chancellor's dodgy activities, but here – well. Drugs are bad," he said, and then added, "I have been told. I have never done drugs."

"I have," said Peter. "Only weed though, but my friends tried to get me to do like, other stuff. I said no though. Get thee behind me, stuff you have to snort – "

"We're getting off track," said Lily. "All we can do is simply do as well on this as possible. We can't let the kids swear, we have to focus on the play, because that looks like we can cope with stuff. Oh God, I can't cope with stuff," she said, and took an enormous gulp of coffee.

"Has the play, erm, actually been _written_?" asked Frank Longbottom, who had a brilliant mind, a brilliant degree, but was too besotted with the drama teacher to actually be much good at teaching psychology.

"Ah," said Remus.

That night saw Remus and Sirius sat in Sirius's little living room, coffee cups constantly refilled by James, who shouted the odd thing about historical accuracy from the kitchen.

"So, if we just cut the Tristan and Isolde thing – bit, well, love potions don't strike me as particularly ethical," said Remus. Sirius nodded.

"Yeah, good idea. So that gives us: Arthur's birth, Uther's death, then the sword in the stone – we can talk to DT, they might rustle up something decent – and then a quick thing about the unification of the kingdom. This play is very pro-monarchy, and I feel slightly uncomfortable. Do we need the Grail stuff? I mean, I reckon it'll be so tainted by the Dan Brown shite – "

"James," said Remus. "Holy Grail, yes or no?"

James demurred, handed them each some jaffa cakes. "I'd say no, for time. I mean, it's a bloody long story. So then we could just cut from that to some quests of the knights, give each drama kid the part of a knight, they can show off. And then straight to Mordred – oh shit, we need the Arthur-drowning-all-the-kids bit, the King Herod stuff. So, put that in before the unification of the kingdom."

Remus nodded. "I mean, the best stories are the ones we already know, so to be honest people will enjoy it. It's purely a CV building exercise, such is the nature of education today. And then we just need the Lancelot and Guinevire stuff, the war, the death of Arthur. We can ask the music A-level lot to write some sad keening music."

"And," said Sirius, "that'll satisfy the performance requirements of their A-level, I think. I'll ask Flitwick. Happy days! Pass the coffee, Remus," and Remus did so.

The first rehearsal went atrociously. Umbridge sat in the back and made copious notes about presumably everything from the state of James's hair to the cellist on the end who kept dropping her bow. The French students sung a song about Malory, accompanied by cacophonous cymbals. Remus winced a lot.

"Come on, you lot," said James. "This is important. It's November and we'll be doing the bloody thing in January, dealing as it does with the king who was and will be. So we shall do it then, to signify, erm, new beginnings. If it's bad enough that England should be threatened, hopefully Arthur will wake up and help us. Or something, I haven't really read it yet."

Lily looked at him from where she was supervising coloured smoke experiments with the year sevens. "Hang on, does Arthur sail away on the boat or sleep under the hill?"

James looked stricken for a second. "He – sails on the boat, which takes him _under_ the hill. In like, Wales. Or Cornwall? No, that was Tintagel. It's just that this entire school is built right by Cadbury Castle, which is thought to be the sight of Camelot! It just makes sense. Hey, someone talk about that. Jake, you do it, you're good at that sort of thing – "

"Making stuff up on the fly?" said Jake. "Thanks sir, I'm going to be a politician," and he started to scribble something at the top of his script.

"Right, from the top!" shouted James.

As November drizzled into December, the play began to take shape. The football team won their first match, and the day after they emerged, grinning and mud covered, from the minibus, Umbridge's report landed on Dumbledore's desk.

He called an assembly, and preparations for the play meant that they had all had to miss the pub quiz that week. Sirius sulked until Remus gave him a Bounty bar from his secret stash.

"Morning all," said Dumbledore, hands outstretched. He looked slightly like a wizened old wizard. It wouldn't have surprised anyone in the slightest if he had been. "We got the results of our inspection today – it seems we passed, by the skin of our teeth."

The teachers breathed a sigh of relief as one. The pupils shifted on their chairs.

"But I thought it would be a good time to mention something," Dumbledore went on. "We all have to do things we don't want to do, and we all are disappointed when we don't do as well on things as we should have. But that doesn't matter, you see. What _matters_ is how we rose to the challenge, how Mr. Potter and Miss Evans got the play going well, how Mr. Black and Mr. Lupin wote it in a night. How you all learned your lines, your parts to the music, your one-liners for the court jesters. You've all done so well, and now – with a month to go until opening night, but that month includes Christmas and New Year, of course – now the end is nigh. I mean, the end is in sight," and he cleared his throat. "I want you all to work very hard for me. You're all involved in this play, and no matter what house you're in – "

"Why do we have houses?" hissed Remus to Sirius.

Sirius smiled. "Ah, it's a remnant of when this was a private school. Then it became a grammar school, and now it's just a comprehensive. The houses all date back to the founders, so they all have stupid names – "

"Mr. Black," said Dumbledore. "Please refrain from whispering conspiratorially to Mr. Lupin, whilst assembly is in progress. Other than that, whisper all you like," and he smiled at them. Remus blinked.

"In summary," went on Dumbledore, "We all have to work together in these times. We have to look for friends in unlikely places, and stand up to those who would see harm done to this school. We're all in this together," he added.

"Does he know that's from High School Musical?" whispered a voice from the amassed pupils.

"I did indeed know that, Mr. Brown," said Dumbledore. "Ten points to Hufflepuff."

"So, is there anything in this school _not_ ridiculously archaic? Some of the classrooms have blackboards. The science labs are meant to be haunted. The staircases are – temperamental. And the House Cup? Wait, which house are we in?" Remus said, pacing up and down beside his collection of chocolate.

"We're in Gryffindor," said Sirius. "See, the red classroom doors? Each house has five teachers in it. Slytherin, who always beat us in the football, only have three: the Carrows – you've not met them, they're on compassionate leave, which is ridiculous as I'm not sure they're capable of feeling compassion – and Snape. He spends his time skulking in his maths room, and then emerging occasionally to scream at a child for wearing gloves in his classroom corridor. Erm, Ravenclaw used to be the brainy house – we used to sort based on attributes – and their teachers are Mr. Lovegood – not sure if you've met him yet actually. He and I get on quite well actually, both into astronomy. Except he's into astrology as well," and he shrugged.

"What does Lovegood teach? And where do all these people spend their time?" said Remus, breaking off a bit of Kinder Bueno.

"He teaches art," Sirius said. "He has a biology degree actually, but he was taken in by one too many unicorn hoaxes and skipped off to do finger-painting instead. When he's not teaching he's up there," and Sirius pointed towards the art building. "He practically haunts the place. Oh, and Ravenclaw also has Binns, who might as well be dead, the amount of teaching he actually does. He shares History with James, but he just mumbles about like, the Angevin empire. Big neo-colonialist," and Sirius took the proffered piece of Kinder Bueno. "Cheers."

"Okay, that's – some of Ravenclaw. Lily told me she used to be there but she was moved. I know they wanted to put me in there, but changed their minds. And then there's Hufflepuff as well, right?"

Sirius narrowed his eyes. "This won't come up in the pub quiz, you know. But there's Frank Longbottom, unfortunate name. He's only there because they needed a Head of House. He came here in the grammar school days and he was Gryffindor – that's where he met Lily. She got into the grammar, her sister had to go to the secondary modern. I'm not sure who else is in Hufflepuff, actually. Probably everyone else. That's the way it seems to work."

"Gotcha," said Remus. "Fancy a pint tonight? We never went for that drink, did we?"

Sirius smiled.


	2. Chapter 2

So," said Remus, sipping at his Amaretto and Coke, "what are your thoughts on Christmas jumpers?"

Sirius blinked, and drank some more wine. "I think they are an atrocity, but a necessary one. Like having armed forces in this century, or Latin."

Remus smiled. "That sounds about right. I love Christmas jumpers, the uglier the better. At the school I used to teach at, the German teacher Goldstein – his grandparents fled the Nazis and came here, and whenever he was drunk he sang "She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain", excellent bloke – insisted on having Hannukah jumpers as well. One of the children misinterpreted the belief behind menorahs and came in with lit candles on his shoulders, so then all festive jumpers were banned. Is there a similar situation here?"

Sirius looked at Remus's lips, and his throat, flushed in the heat from the fire. "We're allowed to wear them, but only the last week of term. Dumbledore goes pretty big actually and decorates the entire school. There will be mistletoe in the staff room. Snape will sit near it and glare at anyone who looks happy, and James will fret about how to attempt to kiss Lily, and then we'll go to the pub and sing Silent Night and I'll cry. It's a classic night out," and Remus laughed.

"Why doesn't James just try – asking her out for a drink? Rather than these ridiculous plans? I mean, the big Slytherin-Gryffindor match is next week, and the play's not until January, and although we won the battle of the first inspection we may not win the war, what with this new curriculum. I mean, asking people out for drinks tends to suggest a romantic interest," and he seemed to realise what he had said, and Sirius was rewarded with the sight of Remus smirking as if he'd been smooth, but also blushing.

"You've got dimples," he said, in an accusing voice. "Remus, come on, you can't have tattoos _and_ dimples, that's just unfair."

Remus laughed again, and Sirius tried not to smile at the sound. "Yeah," Remus said, seriously, "but you've got that hair and your voice is ridiculous, and actually I've been wondering what your skin tastes like – "

Sirius knocked over his empty wine glass as his heart or stomach or both leapt in between his collarbones. "I – _God,_ Remus, you can't say things like that and then just sit there in your ugly jumper with your six o'clock shadow and expect me not to react. But I do want to say, though, that you're – well. I've outgrown one night stands, I think. I think I outgrew them as soon as I saw you, and I'm afraid that if I go home with you then I'll never want to leave and James can't work the floor mop – "

Remus smiled at him, and put a hand on his knee. Sirius forced himself not to move closer, to move until Remus's hand was sliding up his thigh. "Well, maybe we should – take things slow?" he asked, leaning in a little closer until Sirius could count every single one of his long eyelashes. Sirius shifted in his seat and tried to sit as if he wasn't half-hard already.

"You mean," Sirius asked, "slow like, we wait a while before we do anything physical, or slow like you know how much I like getting fucked at varying paces?"

Remus tightened his grip on his knee. Sirius closed his eyes, offered up a quick _please_ to the universe, and kissed him. " _Christ"_ , he managed to whisper, against Remus's lips, which were slightly chapped but soft, and Remus smiled and bit his lip. Sirius shifted in his seat again, achingly aware of how hard he was in his trousers, and just as he went to tangle his fingers in Remus's hair, Remus drew back.

They were both breathing heavily, and Sirius was secretly pleased to see that Remus had two spots of colour high on his cheeks. "Blimey," he said, and smirked at Remus until he couldn't stop himself and smiled properly.

"I think we should take it slowly as in, the traditional meaning of the term," he said to Remus. "Because I tend to rush headlong into things and then everything goes wrong and I'm too wrapped up to notice, really. And you're honestly one of the nicest blokes I've ever met, and a very good kisser, and _god_ your arse is amazing – "

Remus grinned at him. "You're acting like I'm some amazing catch – "

"Believe me," Sirius told him. "The only thing my father ever did with me as a child was hunt or fish; I know a catch when I see one," and Remus looked as if he wasn't sure whether to frown or smile. He appeared to try both.

"Tell me about your childhood," said Sirius. "Wait no, I'm going to get us another drink, and then you can tell me about when you were a lanky sixth former kissing other lanky sixth formers behind the bike sheds, and all that nonsense," and he went off. Remus watched him go, and took a deep breath, and flexed his fingers.

When Sirius returned with the drinks, Remus looked calmer. He'd attempted to smooth his curly hair into a neater look, and he had re-folded the cuffs on the sleeves of his jumper. Sirius grinned, and passed him his drink.

"Okay, now that we have got the intense sexual tension out of the way, we can talk," he said, and downed half his glass of wine in one.

"Right," Remus said, sipping his drink. "Okay, my childhood. I'm from Pontefract, which I had to learn to say the southern way when I moved away. It's in Yorkshire. There's a castle and they make cakes. My education was fairly standard, I was bright, buried my head in books, got teased a bit. Got teased for liking David Bowie as well, but kept my head down, got out. I went to Sheffield for university," and he took a long sip of his drink. "Had a breakdown during second year, tried to kill myself, which is why I got the first tattoo, to cover up the scars. All better now," he said, when Sirius put a hand on his arm. "I'm on medication now, so I'm a lot better. But yeah, somehow got my degree. At uni I got really into climbing – it's practically in the Peak District. So I do a lot of that now, when I can. It's good up here, lots of mountains," and he finished his drink.

"I love the mountains," Sirius said, gently. "Not so keen on all the snow – I get cold easily, and I'm a sore loser when it comes to snowball fights," and Remus laughed.

"Sorry to get all morbid for a minute there. What about you? I know you're from the south," he said, and smiled.

"Yeah, I'm a home counties boy. Grew up between my grandparents' house in Cornwall and my parents' in Kent. You know about my education up to a point, but once I was chucked out of my private school I went to the local grammar, where I met James. He'd been kicked out of a school somewhere in Surrey, so they just sent him over the border."

"I didn't know you two had known each other for such a long time," Remus mused, looking into the fire.

"Oh yeah, we go way back. We both decided to go into teaching, once he had knocked some of my parents' more odious beliefs out of me. Plus, we could get funding for doing our degrees, and my parents refused to pay for it. They wanted me to go to Oxford, study medicine, and then join the Royal Army Medical Corps and marry some posh girl with a good pedigree and wide hips, but it was not to be. I didn't tell them that I wasn't going to do the right A-levels for that, but when my first school report came in for Maths, Further Maths, Physics and History they kicked me out. Changed the locks. I mean, it probably didn't help that when they went to discuss it with me, they walked in on me and some boy from college at rather an intimate part of proceedings, and well. I just didn't fit the image of their son, you know?" He drained his glass. "Fancy another drink?"

"I'll get this round," Remus said, blinking slightly. "Same again, or something stronger?"

Sirius grinned. "Fuck it, let's get _shots_ ," and Remus grinned back, teeth sharp and glinting in the firelight.

"Bloody _hell_ ," Sirius said, as Remus appeared with a tray of shots, and a couple of cocktails.

"I think Aberforth likes me," Remus said. "Although Lily said he's as randy as a goat – "

"Randy _for_ goats, I think, dear Remus," muttered Sirius, and he grabbed at the cocktails. "Ooh, I love Sex on the Beach," he said.

"I'll bear that in mind," Remus replied, straightfaced, and Sirius almost inhaled a glacé cherry.

"So after your parents kicked you out," Remus said once he and Sirius had drank half their cocktails, "what happened?"

"Oh, I went to live with James actually. He and his parents _love_ me, so you'll have to be on your best behaviour when you meet them, if this is something that we're going to be doing," and he slurped at the last of his drink.

"I promise to be on my best behaviour," Remus said, and passed him a shot.

"I don't think you're really proving that to me right now," Sirius whined, after downing the sambuca. "I mean, sambuca, really? Nobody _likes_ sambuca, do they?"

"Nobody likes Coldplay or the Tories, and they're still popular," Remus said, solemnly. "How's the play rehearsals coming along? We're doing _Morte Darthur_ still and Warbeck is getting ansty about the lack of LGBT representation. I commend him for his inclusivity, but I mean, it was written a while ago – "

"Well, the play is coming along. No idea who we can get to play Guinevere although the Feminist Society, spearheaded by Lily, is talking about switching lots of the cast so that the knights are women and all the maidens are men. The girls are all very excited about this possibility, and the boys don't care because it impresses the girls, on the whole. Warbeck wants both Guinevere and Arthur to be played by boys. I think we're going to keep Lancelot as a man and make Guinevere a bisexual guy – "

"We have five weeks to go, and we're only at school for three of those," Remus reminded him. "Can we do all the script changes in time?"

"It's easy, we just switch a few of the verb endings in the French songs and Bob's your uncle. Dumbledore is all for it. At Christmas he drinks a lot more and cries to that terrible Eurotrash CD – remember, that Eurovision entry from the eighties. Grindelwart?"

"Do you mean Grindelwald?" Remus asked, and passed him another shot.

"Yeah, he and Dumbledore used to have a thing back in the day when they were in a band. I got this gossip from Percy, so it might not be that reliable – but anyway, Dumbledore wanted to move into prog rock, and Grindelwald wanted to make the whole universe enjoy Europop. The Second Great Schism, really. Very sad. It doesn't really help that Grindelwald is _huge_ in Albania and I think certain parts of India, and Dumbledore is not huge anywhere. He has published a lot more academic papers, I think. So that's something," and he shrugged, and downed the shot. Remus pretended he wasn't watching how his throat moved.

"Right, so Christmas – the big question is, now that we've made the story of King Arthur as progressive as possible – the big question is, who do you have as your Secret Santa?" Remus asked. He opened a bar of Dairy Milk. "Want some?"

"Why do you _always_ have chocolate? And sadly, dear Remus, I cannot tell you. I swore a solemn oath, and not even the threat of death could make me tell – "

"It's James, isn't it? Otherwise you wouldn't be so delighted with the news. I know that Frank has you and Snape has Lily, which he must have rigged. Dumbledore has Flitwick. Flitwick has Peter, I think. Peter has me – "

"Good God, man," said Sirius, aghast. "How do you know all this? Do people just look at your perfect fucking face and spill their souls to you? I mean, I don't blame them, but it's _Secret Santa_ , is nothing sacred – "

"What are you going to get for him?" Remus asked, leaning forwards again.

"It's a secret, Remus. That's the point," he said, firmly, but licked his lips. "Well, I might give you – a clue – " he added, reaching out to pull Remus closer.

"No kisses until you tell me," Remus said, raising that eyebrow again. Sirius squirmed.

"Fine, fine. I'm getting him – and you can't tell _anyone_ this – a photo album, and I'm going to fill it with all the photos we have of the gang. I mean, I know we have Facebook, but what if it all goes down and he doesn't have any? And it's kind of soppy I know but – "

Remus kissed him. "That's lovely, actually. He's lucky to have you," and he kissed him again. The clock on the mantle struck.

Sirius looked up, wild-eyed. "Shit, shit, it's one and we have to be in play rehearsals in eight hours – " and he walked Remus home, just round the corner, kissed him almost hard enough to bruise at the front door, and then ran home himself. It started to snow, and he almost slipped on an icy patch, but he got home before half three and fell asleep with all his clothes on.

In the morning, James woke him up with a huge mug of coffee and a wide grin. "How was your drink with _Remus_?"

Sirius gulped at the coffee. "We talked for fucking hours, it was great, and then we kissed and that was better. Like, okay, you _know_ how I get when people pull my hair, I thought I was going to come there and then – "

"I think there are things about your sex life that I do not need to know," said James, reaching out to give him a high five. "I mean, ever since you called me on Skype and forgot about the handcuffs you still had on one wrist, and that bloke wandering naked into shot holding a whip – I mean, you know. I don't tell you this stuff, do I?"

Sirius rolled his eyes and pulled his shirt over his head. James whistled lowly at the bruises on his neck. "Some teeth on him, that boy," he commented, and Sirius threw a dirty sock at him.

"Oh, did you talk to him about the whole feminist revival of the play?" James asked, dodging the sock. "Because it isn't much work at all, and it'd make actually everyone happy, apart from Snape. Any chance to piss off Snape is always great. Plus like, subtext, was Guinevero denying his true sexuality when he married Arthuress, and then was Lancelot his true manly love?"

"You know, maybe we should just leave the names the same," said Sirius. "But yeah, it could like, call into question the heteronormativity of society both then and today."

"It's like Remus is in the room, isn't it? Stop quoting him and get in the shower, you stink of sambuca."

The snow was drifting against the windows and walls of the school, and half the playground was frozen. Sirius extracted some year sevens from the largest snowdrift, and he and James made their way into school.

"Hello," said Lily, falling into step beside them. "The last football match of the season is tomorrow, is it not?"

"You know it is," said Sirius. "You've been making banners since Halloween," and she grinned.

"Potter," she said, and next to him Sirius felt James stiffen. "How are the team looking?"

James took a deep breath. "Yeah, I think we're going to be okay. I mean, obviously, Slytherin have a reputation for cheating – "

"Don't let your dislike for Snape colour your dislike of his house. That was a long time ago, and I know you'd hate to be judged on the merits of what your parents did, for example. But I agree – you might actually have a chance," she said, and elbowed him, and then walked ahead, hair swinging behind her.

"I'm in love with her," James told Sirius, slightly hoarsely. "I'd walk to the ends of the earth on broken class if she asked me. I'd fight a thousand – "

"Okay," said Sirius, steering him towards their corridor. "Talking of fighting, are you still teaching the Civil War?"

"Yeah, I've divided the year eights into Roundheads and Cavaliers, paired up two from each side, and told them to do presentations about specific battles and events. We're doing propaganda next, so it'll be a good introduction, if they do it properly. They're doing it in fancy dress, which should be amusing. And then the AS-level lot are confused about the Russian Revolution. Year nine are doing well on World War I, it's all going alright. How's the world of physics?"

Sirius followed him into his classroom. "Physics is okay, all the stars seem to be where I left them. The A-level class approached full-on revolution during quantum physics but were calmed with a return to Newton. Year tens are all scarily into nuclear energy and I think we may need to keep an eye on Philips – she seems intent on smuggling yellowcake uranium into her garden shed. The thing is, she's bright enough to build a small reactor, but it's a risk," he concluded sadly, "that we must not take."

"Lily said yesterday that the Chemistry lot have been working on lots of cool potion type things," said Peter, coming in with tea. "She has decided to dress as a witch, for supervisory purposes. I believe, James, and I'm telling you this because I love you – I believe the costume may involve either lace or fishnets."

"Mother of God," James said, taking a sip of his tea and scalding his tongue.

"Oh, word from DT – the props are all coming along nicely. Flitwick says the choir have embraced their roles, and the French lot are ridiculously excited about mediaeval French. We're filling the performance element for, I think, four different subjects, as well as the art students, who can display their work," Peter relayed. "The year sevens are doing mapwork and they've been designing some rather excellent maps to go in our programmes, which are being processed by ICT."

"It all seems to be going swimmingly," Remus said, popping his head round the door. "The script is finished and it seems that everyone knows their lines. The only department without much to do seems to be Maths," and he grinned at Sirius, who almost forgot to breathe. Remus hadn't shaved that morning, he noted, and was wearing a sea-green shirt.

"Maths can do magic, can't they? I mean, they can come up with some formulae that look cool. We could put some fun equations on the programmes," said Sirius, and James snorted.

"Fun equations? All history is doing is providing a few narrators, and some historical notes for the programmes. There's no way in _hell_ you're going to let Snape get anywhere near," he said, wisely. "I just hope he doesn't come down with a severe attack of sour grapes and try to spoil it."

"Even he wouldn't do that," said Peter. "I mean, he's only here because Dumbledore seems content to turn a blind eye to his frequent use of the whiteboard rubber as a high-speed projectile. He'd not risk it, would he?"

The room filled with ominous music. James checked his pocket, and pulled out his phone. "Sorry, it's Mum," he mouthed, and went off to answer it.

"Suppose we'd all better get back to our own classrooms," said Remus. "Class starts in half an hour, and I've still got a load of books to rearrange," and he shot a look at Sirius under his lashes.

"Would you like some help?" asked Sirius.

"Thank you," said Remus. "That would be lovely."

"I could help too!" yelled Peter, as they left the classroom. Remus pretended he had not heard.

"Just wanted a quick word," he said to Sirius. "I had a lot of fun last night and I'd love to do it again, but the play has to go well. It's my first year here and given that I'm in charge of the writing of the thing, it'll reflect badly on me if it's snarled up in any way," and Sirius nodded.

"I absolutely understand," he said, ignoring the way his stomach twisted at the words. "Maybe we should – wait a little, until after the play at least," and Remus nodded. He leaned in close, as if to kiss Sirius, but then kissed his cheek instead. Sirius smiled. "Have you seen my neck?"

Remus shoved the soft material of his posh jumper aside. "Oh, look at you," he breathed, looking as if he wanted to kiss every bruise on Sirius's neck. "Christ, you know, I don't think I want to wait until after the play. I mean, I know it's a bad idea, but well – you make me want to be reckless," and this time he really did kiss Sirius, curling his fingers in his hair.

Sirius kissed him back, and dropped one hand to curve around Remus's bony hip. "This is probably inappropriate on school grounds," he muttered, "but I really want to blow you," and Remus swore into his mouth, and pulled on his hair.

"This is definitely inappropriate," said James, walking into the classroom. "Glad you're getting along so well, lads, but the bell's about to go and I don't think year nine would be too pleased to see a re-enactment of Oscar Wilde's inspiration for Dorian Gray – "

"Nobody here is going to be arrested, it's not a crime, and Sirius is much prettier than Dorian Gray," said Remus, sensibly.

"Don't tell him that," James said. "It'll only go to his head. I'm convinced he has a picture hidden away somewhere in the attic, he's that fucking pretty," and so the advancing year nines were treated to a teacher swearing, instead. James got at least sixteen high fives as he hurried back to his classroom.

"Thank you for the assistance, Mr. Black," Remus said, and Sirius chanced a glance at the class. They were sat, hanging onto their every word.

"You're more than welcome, Mr. Lupin. I'd be willing to give you a hand at lunchtime if you still need it?" he said, and was rewarded with Remus blushing peony.

"That would be great, thanks," Remus said, and bundled him out the classroom. He took a deep breath, and turned the corner to go to his own room, and walked snap-bang into Snape.

"You're late, Black," Snape said.

"Yeah," said Sirius, "I know I am, but what are you?"

Snape blinked. "I'm not even sure that's correct. Anyway, I'm not late, because I have a free period as my year eleven Maths Challenge team are doing that. They're through to the finals," he said, smugly. Sirius wanted to punch him more than ever.

"Well that's great, at least they'll get a certificate to console them about being virgins for life," he said. Snape stepped closer. Sirius could see every blackhead on his nose.

"Physics is almost as geeky as Maths, Black," he said. Sirius thought that this, whilst true, was also a lie, but before he could retort, Snape went on. "I suggest that you get to your classroom before I report you to the headmaster for tardiness."

"Tardiness? What fucking century is this?" Sirius said, but sighed and headed to his classroom.

"Sorry I'm late, folks," he said. "There was, erm, a physics emergency. CERN called me, very important – "

Briony Welbeck snorted. "We saw you snogging Mr. Lupin. Me and Claire were having a fag and we saw you through the window. Fair play sir, he's fit," and Sirius wondered if it was too late to borrow a drill from DT to trepan himself.

"That's my private life, and I'd like to ask you all – _all_ \- to keep it private. I know I have not been as discreet as I should have been, but please don't mention this to your friends. I know far too much about all of you, remember? All that forgotten homework, extra time on projects, spliffs in pencil cases?"

"Sir," said Hugo Casey. "Blackmail's a bit low, surely? You don't have to threaten us, we'll keep it a secret," and he smiled, and Sirius breathed a sigh of relief and got on with talking to them all about hydroelectricity.

When the bell went, Sirius rushed next door. Remus was sat on his desk, talking on the phone, so Sirius waved and then perched on the edge of a desk. He tried not to listen to the phone call, but it sounded serious; "I'd tell you if I needed that," and "I don't consider myself your patient anymore," and finally "For fuck's sake," as Remus hung up the phone.

"Sorry about that," he said, after a pause. "My doctor, being annoying. How are you?"

"Well, my year sevens saw us kissing," Sirius said. Remus passed a hand over his forehead, as if he had a migraine building.

"Maybe we were right, about not wanting to rush things. We certainly don't want the school finding out, at least not yet – it does seem rather improper. But see, I can say that, and then I look at you, and it's all I can do not to kiss you right now," Remus said, slightly sadly.

"Maybe, then, a compromise. We need to somehow stop doing anything improper on school property. If we separate our private lives from our school lives, we'll always have time to stop ourselves from rushing into it," Sirius said slowly. Remus grinned at him.

"We can do that, right? We can stop ourselves from doing anything physical at school? I mean, the way you look right now, I really wouldn't mind crawling under your teacher's desk and blowing you, but – "

"Remus," Sirius said, looking pained. "You can't just say things like that, you can't," and then they were kissing, and then the bell went and Sirius went off to impart knowledge to his class. It was difficult, but he looked at lots of photos of Sir Isaac Newton, and eventually he could stand up without worrying the whole class could see how hard he was.

At lunch, he went to talk to James, who was eating a cheese sandwich in a maudlin sort of way. "Hello," James said, through a mouthful of cheddar. "I want to drown myself, and that is because a child asked me if the Civil War and the Wars of the Roses were the same thing. Also, apparently, Lily is going out with Snape," and he took another bite of the sandwich.

"I also have problems," Sirius said, sliding into the seat next to him. "You see, Remus is really fit and I want him to fuck me on his desk, and I think if I spend enough time in his classroom it might happen, and I had to look at pictures of Isaac Newton to stop myself coming in my pants – oh hello Pete," he said, as Peter sat opposite.

"Alright lads," said Peter. "James, some news – Snape started that rumour, and then apparently Lily went all Fury on him and yelled at him. And also, Sirius, stop wanking over dead physicists," and he stuck his straw into his Ribena incorrectly, sending blackcurrant juice all over the table.

"I'm not wanking over dead physicists – "

"Any more," muttered James, who was chewing his crusts as if he hoped he might choke on them.

"That was one time, and anyway, Pete, the issue is that Remus and I can't seem to keep our hands of each other." Sirius pulled out his own lunch, and James managed a laugh.

"Poor little rich boy, can't have sex with a hot boy because of fucking common sense. Of course you're eating fucking smoked salmon bagels. You can take the boy out of the mansion – "

"It wasn't a mansion," Sirius said, stiffly. "Don't be a dick just because I'm getting somewhere with Remus and your football term barely know their arse from their elbow – "

"Sirius," Peter said. "You're being unfair. Plus, I don't think the football team is the problem, is it? I mean, the whole thing with Lily must be – "

"Yep, thanks Pete," James snapped. "Honestly, this has been a terrible morning, and I've got fucking Loverboy going on about how tragic it is that he can't fuck on school property, and you reminding me of all my problems every five minutes. I'm going for a walk," and off he went.

"Looks like someone got out of bed on the wrong side this morning," commented Pete, slurping the spilled Ribena from the table. Sirius rested his head on his hands.

"He was just as rich as I was," he mumbled, through his fingers.

He didn't see James again until the evening. He got home at six, fighting with the door in the gale-force wind that was driving snow down the back of his neck. James was already in, eating a microwave meal.

"Chicken balti?" Sirius asked, and then held his breath.

"Nah, jalfrezi," James said, after a pause. "Sorry for being a wanker, mate. It's just – this whole quest thing. I mean sure, the play's going to go okay, but the football team really were shit today. I don't know if I can pull this off," and he morosely took a mouthful of pilau rice.

"James William Potter," Sirius said, sitting down next to him and getting snow all over the carpet. "The play is going to be a wonder. And the football team are just nervous, and I hate to criticise you, but maybe if you let them relax a little – "

"There's no time to relax," James insisted, opening a third beer. "They need to keep practising – "

"Yeah, and if you make them do that they'll be neurotic about it. Remember when your dad made you keep on at rugby, even when you had other stuff to think about? And you ended up chucking it all in, because the pressure was too immense?"

"Shut up with your physics talk," mumbled James, but he nodded. "I'll tell them tomorrow. I'll say, relax a bit. The thing is that the whole school knows that if they win, I get to ask out Lily. That's the pressure. I'm not working them as hard as Snape is working the Slytherins. I hope they'll win out of sheer talent, because they really are a talented bunch," and he nodded at a plastic bag on the counter.

"Got you a korma," and Sirius smiled and within five minutes was back on the sofa with his curry and a peshwari naan. "Anything on telly?"

By Wednesday, the day before the match, Remus was wearing Christmas jumpers and the school had been transformed into an elf's wet dream. Peter was wearing a jumper with a pudding, and singing songs, badly. Sirius had plaited his hair and tied it with tinsel, and James was singing songs in his impressive baritone.

"Okay, small geniuses," said James to the amassed football team. "You've all been working very hard. Tonight, I want you to go home, eat some pasta, and _relax_. Watch rubbish on the telly, wear fluffy socks, get a good night's sleep, yeah?"

Oliver led the team in a round of cheers.

Thursday was Match Day, and the Slytherins and Gryffindors had to kept apart at lunchtime. In years gone by, the two teams had put each other in the hospital wing. This year, nobody was taking any chances. Year sevens sneered at year sevens and year tens whispered threats about vodka and the local police officer and dodgy cigarettes. It was a bitterly cold day, with an icy wind, and the teams were wearing as many layers as they could fit underneath their team jerseys.

The whistle blew; Dumbledore was umpiring. Slytherin started off with the ball, to great whoops and cheers from the green mass on one side of the pitch. Gryffindor took possession with a remarkable tackle from Hendricks, but by the fortieth minute, neither side had scored. When the whistle went for half time, James was almost hoarse from shouting.

"Here," said Remus, handing him a cup of tea. "Hello," he said to Sirius, who smiled.

"Don't expect much conversation from James. Charlie Weasley has been stretchered off, a dodgy tackle from that troll over there, but nobody saw it closely enough to decide if it's allowed. We're pretty stressed. Both teams down to their last subs, but at least ours is Oliver Wood," and as Wood stood up, and stretched, the Gryffindor supporters went wild.

"How many broken bones?" Remus asked, only half joking.

Sirius patted James on the back. "So far, only a few hearts," and with that it was time to get back on the pitch.

Remus produced a flask of hot chocolate from somewhere inside his bag. "It's Cadburys, the old stuff from before the takeover. I stockpiled it", he said, and Sirius could only stare at him in wonder.

"You beautiful man," he said, and a warmth spread through his chest that had little to do with the hot chocolate and much more to do with the fact that Remus had surreptitiously taken his hand.

The game continued below them, and in the seventy-sixth minute, Slytherin scored. Snape curled his lip across the pitch at James, who sat down suddenly, as if his legs had given way. He looked as though he might cry. Sirius stood. "We should go to him," he said, but then Remus shushed him.

"Look," he said, and pointed through the crowd. Lily was walking up to James, wearing a red Gryffindor jumper. Sirius jolted so hard he almost fell over, and Remus tugged him back down to a sitting position.

Lily leaned in close to James, and he smiled so hard Sirius wondered if the whole of Scotland could see that he had had very expensive orthodontia. At a roar from the crowd, James leapt up, and whirled Lily round in his arms; Gryffindor had just equalised at the eighty-ninth minute. The supporters in red began to sing, and Sirius sat contently, holding Remus's hand secretly and sipping hot chocolate, when there was a gasp from the crowd, and then a sickly silence.

"What's going on?" Remus said, and Sirius looked at the pitch.

"I did rugby," he reminded him. "It looks like there's been a foul. Look, Flint's getting a red card," and so he was. Next to him, Hendricks lay in agony, with one leg bending at an unnatural angle.

"Shit," Remus said. "So, is that – do we get penalties? Is this the World Cup all over again?"

Peter looked over at them. "Bloody hell, does James know how little you two know about footy? We get a free kick. The ball's over there, and Flint attacked Hendricks – "

"Are you reading the rules on your phone?" asked Remus, leaning over to look, and Peter shoved it away.

"It's been a while since I played, alright?" he muttered.

The free kick had been set up. Wood was taking it, and as he stepped forwards, Sirius said a small prayer to a god he no longer believed in, and the ball flew straight and true and hit the back of the net.

Dumbledore seized an ancient megaphone. "Gryffindor win! The title is theirs! Congratulations, Gryffindor House!" and Sirius privately wondered if Dumbledore had ever said those words before. Below them, James was hugging his team and weeping incoherently. Lily was handing out Freddo bars, paid for by James after the school refused to stretch to paying twenty-six pence per chocolate frog, and Remus was holding his hand.

As the team lifted the cup, and after the photos, once the Gryffindor supporters had surged onto the pitch to lift Wood onto their shoulders and sing songs that no longer had any meaning, Sirius looked at James, who was standing very close to Lily. Remus leaned in close, and motioned drinking a pint. Without a word, Sirius nodded, and within half an hour, most of the teachers were packed into the Three Broomsticks.

James was bought pint after pint until his face was red and his eyes glassy, and then he stood on a table and made a rambling speech about love and honour and the Romans and sports, and Lily pulled him down from the table and kissed him, and during the whistles and cheers, Sirius noticed that Remus had vanished.

He looked around, and then headed outside, where Remus was sat on a small patch of non-snowy wall, smoking. "You alright?" he asked, and Remus startled.

"Yeah, it's just – it was pretty loud in there. I have anxiety. Hence the meltdown at uni. When I was a kid things were pretty shit for a bit, and now I'm a bit of a mess of anxiety. So yeah, that's, you know. I can understand if you don't want to see me anymore," and he took another long drag.

"I understand," Sirius said, squeezing close to him and extracting a battered Marlborough Gold from his pack. "I have my own stuff, as well. Everyone has stuff," and Remus kissed him, and he tasted of smoke and marzipan.

"Want to get out of here?" he said, and Sirius kissed him, and nodded. They grabbed their coats, said goodbye to James, Lily and Peter – all of whom kissed them all on the lips, all of whom were swaying like a scarecrow in a gale – and headed to the pub they had been to, the last time it was just the two of them.

It was quieter in there, and the fire was burning low. Sirius got them drinks, and watched Remus drink his too quickly. "Hey," he said. "I'm right here," and under the table, Remus grabbed his hand, and didn't let go.

For a while they didn't talk, just looked at the fire crackling and held hands, and then Remus turned to him.

"Thank you," he said. "I was getting a bit stressed in there, and I was getting better but then the other week my psychiatrist phoned me – you were there – and he said that because of funding cuts," and Remus spat the words, "my therapy will be less often. He said I need to ensure I have a secure support system in place. I don't want to need a fucking secure support system, I just want friends."

Sirius watched the fire for a few minutes before speaking. "Friends are your support system. And it's the same for everyone, whether your biggest problem is that you've never managed to finish _War and Peace_ or you're in hospital for suicidal ideation. Friends are – we're all here for you, and not because we pity you. We're here because we care about you," and he drew Remus close, and Remus hugged him tightly.

"Sirius Orion Black," he said. "You're a bloody marvel," and he kissed him, long and slow. The barman cleared his throat, and nodded at two drinks on the bar, and then returned to polishing a filthy glass with a filthier rag. Sirius looked up, and the barman shrugged.

"It's Christmas, and you two have been my only customers all day, and I'm trying to like, curry favour, so that you come back and keep drinking your expensive drinks," and Sirius grinned and went up to the bar, sliding a twenty across the top.

"Get one for yourself as well, mate," he said, and the barman shrugged again but smiled a small smile which reminded Sirius of Dumbledore in some way. Remus drank his drink more slowly this time, licking up the straw in a way which shouldn't have turned Sirius on. He realised with a sigh that Remus reading the phone book would turn him on, and told him this with a resigned expression.

He leaned in and kissed Sirius again, maddeningly softly, and let go of his glass to slip one hand around Sirius's waist and moved the other to his hair. He pulled, slightly, on Sirius's hair. Sirius half-yowled into his mouth, and Remus grinned against his lips and did it again.

"I hate to sound like an inexperienced teenager," Sirius said, separating them just enough that he could see Remus's eyes, darker than he had ever seen them, "but if you keep doing that I will actually come in my pants and I'm wearing really nice boxers today – oh _God_ ," he groaned, as Remus bit down gently on the skin of his neck. "Yeah, you could – actually like, leave a mark again, if you want to," and Remus made a sound that could only be described as a growl and bit down harder. "Actually, how far away is your place, because I really need – "

"Round the corner," Remus said against his neck, voice rough. "Come on," and they grabbed their coats and headed out into the snow.

Remus's really was just around the corner, Sirius was grateful to note, but the walk took a lot longer than it should have had because Sirius was struggling to keep his hands out of Remus's back pockets. At the door, Remus fiddled with the keys as Sirius muttered threats in his ear about doorstep blowjobs unless he _fucking hurried up_ and at last the door was open and Remus dragged Sirius to his room, which by some miracle was on the ground floor, and the minute his door (covered in posters and concert tickets) was closed behind them Sirius had sank to his knees, unbuttoned Remus's jeans, and took him into his mouth like it was something he was born to do. He closed his eyes, knowing if he looked at the tattoos which danced their way down Remus's thighs then he would be undone, and ran his tongue along the underside of Remus's cock. Remus swore, and thrusted, and then stopped himself.

Sirius lifted his head until he could kiss the slit of Remus's cock, mind full of thoughts about saints and lips and kisses, some half-forgotten metaphor from _Romeo and Juliet_ , and said "You can do that if you want, but only if you pull my hair," and he watched Remus swear again and tasted the pre-come that was leaking from his cock and swallowed him down again until his nose could almost touch Remus's tattooed, toned stomach. Remus put his hands in Sirius's hair, and pulled, and as he did so Sirius hollowed his cheeks and sucked and felt himself let go, tip over the edge, and he regretted his now-ruined boxers for a moment until Remus thrusted his hips and came with a shout and the thud of his head hitting the back of the door. They remained as they were for a few minutes, both panting, both with lust-blown eyes, and Remus reached out to pull Sirius to his feet and kissed him.

"You taste like me," he muttered, and smiled, and Sirius half-expected a possessive lip-bite but there was none, just a smile and a gentle kiss. "Fuck, Sirius," said Remus when they pulled apart. "That was – that was the hottest thing in the universe, fucking hell. Listen to how inarticulate I am," and he smiled again. "I have a degree in literature and I can't think of anything to say apart from _fucking hell_ but you're so beautiful on your knees," and he kissed Sirius again, softly. "What can I do for you?"

Sirius shifted slightly, and sat down on the bed. "Erm, well, the hair-pulling and the noises you were making, I think I've ruined my nice boxers. Like, it's just, a _thing_ with me. You can order me around as well if you like," and he was looking at his feet, "erm, that's quite nice. I think it's maybe like, I like giving up control," and Remus sat down next to him.

"I must confess, not only is that incredibly fucking hot to hear, and something I will definitely keep in mind, I'm intrigued to see these boxers of yours," and Sirius smirked and pressed an aching kiss to the corner of his mouth and stood up to peel off his jeans. Remus watched, eyebrow raised. "I've never seen jeans that skinny you know," and Sirius smirked again as he tugged them over his feet.

"Shut up, you love it," and at last his jeans were on the floor. His boxers were black, with a large image of the Tower of Orthanc on them, and when he turned round Remus saw the Eye of Sauron.

"Sirius," he said, as gravely as he could. "Those are an abomination. You will have to burn them. Take them off, and come over here."

Remus woke up to still-naked Sirius wrapped around him, and his phone going off. He grabbed it, swore at the time, saw it was Lily, and answered it. Sirius muttered something, and shifted closer to him.

"Where are you?" asked Lily. "It's Friday, school starts in an hour, and I'm giving you half an hour before I come in there. I know where you keep your spare key, and it's snowing again. Please get your arse here and remember to put on trousers this time!"

"Ah," Remus said, poking Sirius until he woke up. "Yep, I'll be – five minutes," he said, and hung up.

"Morning, you," Sirius said, stretching slightly. "If I'd known what a duvet hog you'd be, I'd have brought my own one from home," and Remus kissed him without thinking about morning breath.

"Put some clothes on," said Remus. Sirius groaned but got up, and Remus almost forgot to breathe as he watched him padding across the floor. "Your arse is fucking perfect, by the way," he said.

Sirius looked over one shoulder in the manner of a starlet on the red carpet, and smirked. "Shouldn't you be getting up as well? We have to get to school, it's – "

"Alright, alright," grumbled Remus, and he stopped halfway through selecting a shirt from the wardrobe. "Do we have time to shower?"

After their shower, in which Remus displayed excellent breath control and tongue techniques – "I learned the clarinet in school," he said, smugly, and then added "I was best at the fingering," at which Sirius bit his neck – he opened the door to Lily, who was wearing a polo neck and a scarf, and what looked like a hangover. Behind her, James was standing with his hands in his pockets.

"Oh, hello," Sirius said, shoving a mug of coffee at her. His shirt was still undone, there were bruises and scratches all down his chest, and he looked very happy. "Where did you end up last night, then?"

She looked at him balefully. "I slept at yours, actually. And no, we did not shag, we just did bits and bobs, to satisfy your puerile and perhaps slightly perverted curiosity. I'm not sure if I'm surprised to see you here or not," and she took a gulp of coffee. James looked at her fondly.

"Ah, Lily," Remus said, doing up his tie. "You see, Sirius cannot resist my charms – "

"It's true," said Sirius, sadly. "I cannot resist his charms. Speaking of charms, what cereal do you have?"

"I'd heard about this obsession with expensive American cereal," Remus said, with narrowed eyes. "No time for cereal, anyway. We have to go, or we'll all be late – Lily, do you have your car?"

"I have my car," she confirmed, and they made it school with five minutes to spare.

Sirius hurried to his classroom, where his grumpy A-level class were sat. "So, the question of today is," he said, "which Christmas film do we watch? Last day of term, you lot, come on – "

The day passed in a blur of ice-skating, two boys crying during Love Actually, and then it was hometime and time for Secret Santa. Sat in the staff-room, Flitwick opened an old piece of music from the fifteenth century, written in the baroque style, and he cried and thanked Dumbledore in a querulous voice. Peter was given a magnificent globe, and Remus opened a signed edition of Seamus Heaney's _Beowulf_ and gave Peter a long hug. James loved his photo album. Lily also got a photo album, except that it was from Snape and therefore, full of pictures of the two of them from their PGCE course, and there were lots of shots taken from a distance, as if Snape had been standing in a tree or some shrubbery.

Sirius, once this uncomfortable moment had passed and Lily had thanked Snape with a slightly nauseous expression, opened a huge star-map. It looked hand-drawn, and when he looked closer he saw that not only was it a map of the stars, but it also tracked the heavens. "Lovegood helped. I can inform you," said Frank, "that your moon is rising in Gemini," and Sirius hugged him, genuinely and warmly.

"That sounds uncomfortable," Peter said, and the room exploded into laughter, and as people began to trickle home, Remus waited until he and Sirius were the last ones in the room.

"So I hate to be cheesy and cliché and all that, but the year nines made me watch Love Actually three times, and so – "

"Oh God," Sirius said, terrified. "You're not going to tell me all you want for Christmas is me, are you?"

Remus laughed. "No, don't worry. If I ever do, you have permission to perform a lobotomy," and from behind his back he produced a piece of mistletoe. "I do have this, however," and he kissed Sirius, hand tilting his jaw slightly. They slept curled around eachother again.

The holidays, as always, passed quickly. Sirius spent most of his time planning lessons and marking work and panicking over the play, and Remus, James, Lily and Peter spent their time doing this but getting much more sleep. On Christmas Eve, Sirius drank enough merlot for his courage to leap into his mouth, but before he could tell Remus he loved him, Remus said "I love you," and it was all okay. Lily proclaimed them "nauseating", but as she and James had matching jumpers they claimed to wear ironically, Sirius threw stuffing at her every time she mentioned this. They had Christmas dinner together, a sort of ramshackle family, along with James's parents and Lily's dad and Peter's mum, and an assortment of various dogs, all crammed into James and Sirius's tiny living room.

The new year was fast approaching, and Remus and Sirius were snatching every bit of time they could together, but it wasn't until the morning of New Year's Eve that Sirius sat with him at breakfast, waited until he had finished his boiled egg, and said "I want you to fuck me tonight," and Remus looked at him and smiled.

The day was spent in a rush, tidying up the house for the planned party that evening. James appeared to have bought all the wine that France could offer, and Sirius was in charge of music, which was a responsibility that would be taken away after the sixth time he played "I Believe in a Thing Called Love".

They drank, and drank, and then their guests arrived and they drank more and Flitwick was asleep by eleven, with his head on Lovegood's shoulder. Frank Longbottom plucked up the courage to speak to Alice from Maths, the angel to Snape's evil overlord devil, and she looked at him and smiled and kissed him, to cheers all round. At midnight, Sirius kissed Remus until his heart was racing, and then they disappeared upstairs.

In Sirius's bedroom, Remus took off his shirt, and folded it and put it on the chair. Sirius kicked away his jeans, helped Remus do the same, and pulled Remus's jumper over his head, and kissed every inch of his stomach, marvelling at the way the ink looked. Remus sat up, and pulled Sirius's shirt off as well, and slipped a hand down the front of his boxers.

"I want to see you, but I'm alarmed at what your boxers might look like," he said, and Sirius laughed and took those off as well and then they were both naked and Remus's eyes were bright in the darkness and he reached over into the top drawer, found the lube, and slipped a finger inside Sirius. Sirius tried to keep his breathing steady, but when Remus added a second finger and crooked them, and found the spot that made Sirius weak and the knees, his hips bucked and he swore.

"You like that, don't you?" Remus said. "Another?" and Sirius swore and nodded, shifting his hips and moving backwards, desperate for more. Remus seemed amused, and he moved on the bed until he was in front of Sirius. "Up, onto your knees," he said, and Sirius scrambled to do so, whining as Remus removed his fingers.

"I'm so – so ready for you," he said, and Remus kissed his way down his spine and when Sirius felt his clever tongue push its way inside him he felt himself begin to unravel. "Oh God," he managed, harder than he'd ever been before. "Fucking hell, Remus, I need you, I need you inside me, I need you to fuck me, to fill me up, I – _please_ – " and Remus drew back.

"You're ready for me?" he asked, and Sirius looked over his shoulder to see him looking at him, serious and steady.

"Yes, yes, condoms in the top drawer – " and he heard the drawer opening, the ripping open of a packet, and then Remus was behind him again.

"I want to see your face," Remus said, softly, and Sirius turned over and spread his bent legs wide.

"Now, _please_ fuck me," he said, and Remus laughed, and kissed him again.

"You're fucking needy, aren't you?" he said, smirking.

"Only for you," Sirius said, and watched his eyes darken with lust, and then he guided Remus into him. It hurt, it always did, but only a little, only enough to make Sirius deliciously sore the next morning. Remus stayed still, and Sirius reached out to put his hands onto his beautiful arse. "Fucking _move_ ," he half-growled, and Remus groaned and pulled out, very slowly, and Sirius waited, and then - almost as slowly – Remus slid back in, and again, faster, and then suddenly he got the angle perfect and Sirius started rambling – "oh _fuck_ oh god Remus, that's it, that's it, fuck you fill me up, I – _fuck_ – " and he reached forwards with one hand to stroke himself, and at the sight Remus moved faster, still with that perfect angle, and they were both sweating now, and he could feel it building in his belly like a wave, and he bucked his hips and swore and the wave was cresting and he was coming in hot, thick spurts across both their stomachs. He put his thumb in his mouth, tasting himself, and at that Remus groaned out something which might have been his name and came, still moving through it until he collapsed onto Sirius's chest, panting and boneless.

He was the most beautiful thing Sirius had ever seen, and he told him that, and then he got a towel and wiped them both clean and when Remus got back from throwing away the condom, he and Sirius fell asleep curled round each other as if even naked they could not be close enough. "Happy new year," Remus whispered, and Sirius turned and kissed him and sleepily repeated it, and then right before they fell asleep he took Remus's hand and kissed his wrists, where the tattoos hid the scars, and Remus dreamed of strong arms and bright smiles and sharp teeth.


	3. Chapter 3

"Snape's being a wanker again," James said, passing a plate of eggs and bacon to Remus. "He's found out about the whole hospital thing, somehow. And he's making snide comments. Shall I sort him out?" He took a sip from his Churchill mug. "Also, we need more milk," he added, spitting his lumpy tea back into the cup.

"Ah, my fault," said Sirius. "The milk, not the Snape thing. Although what _can_ we do? Pranks are a little immature – "

"Pranks are a little immature?" said Peter, shoving an entire piece of toast into his mouth. "Who are you," he went on, spraying the table with crumbs, "and _what_ have you done with Sirius Black?"

Remus snorted, and took a bite of scrambled egg. "The play's in a week, and he's so focused he's like a dog that's just had his knackers done," he pointed out.

"Our sex life is as fruitful and joyous as ever – " Sirius began, but Lily held up a hand.

"No sex talk at the breakfast table, Sirius. This isn't a sitcom. And regarding the Snape thing, we could perhaps invent a _little_ rumour about him. Nothing too insidious, but perhaps – "

"We could start a rumour that he washes in sheep piss," said Peter. "It might encourage him to _actually_ wash as well, which would make the staff room a better place."

"Good point," Sirius said, biting into his bacon sandwich with a look of ecstacy. "Or we could ruin his life for being mean to my boyfriend. Just a minor ruination, you understand – we could claim he ruins Grindelwald's fanclub. I've heard actually that Grindelwald is big into fascism now, which would make Snape seem bad. We could say he's a UKIP voter!"

"To be honest," James said, "that's not such a bad idea. I mean, he probably is. And he probably wanks over photos of Riddle. I refuse to call him by his stupid Twitter handle. He's got almost eighty thousand followers, have you seen?"

"Riddle's a tosser," Remus said, forcefully. "He was always on about not needing safe spaces at unis any more, and he was a big fan of talking about how abuse victims need to _get over it_ and that sort of thing. We had a petition at our _Phoenix_ , to do with cuts to mental health services, and he pissed all over it and shut us down anyway, and it's all – " and he broke off, breathing heavily. Sirius reached across the table to take his hand.

"Right, so. We start a rumour – Flitwick's a huge gossip and so is Sprout – that Snape's a dickwad fascist wankstain. And then we make this the greatest feminist Arthurian play ever performed, and our names go down in history. We could get a plaque. Anyone else fancy a plaque?" Sirius asked, rubbing circles into the back of Remus's hand with his thumb.

"I fancy a plaque," said Peter. "James, get on at the kids about the dangers of fascism. Lily, you'll have to nod when you hear and say it doesn't surprise you. Sirius, it might be best if you stay out of this, and Remus. You can keep each other occupied, I'm sure." He took a huge gulp of his tea. "I'll start spreading the rumour at a low level."

Lily gave him a high five, and James looked at her as if she had hung the stars in the sky.

"You're one of those people who says all year they want winter, and then complain about being cold, aren't you?" Sirius said to Remus, watching him pull his gloves on. "I mean, I'll keep you warm – " and he winked, leaning forwards to kiss him – "but you know, in summer I expect you to be wearing as little clothing as possible, to make up for all the woolly clothing."

"Snow's forecast, for one thing. And another, are you saying," Remus said, shoving his earmuffs onto his head, "that you don't find me sexy enough?"

Sirius laughed. "Perish the thought," he said. "Those are mine, though," and he nodded at the earmuffs. "I might need them for later – got a song-related rehearsal, and when we cast the minstrels we thought Melody Griffiths might live up to her name and heritage. Not at all, sadly. She sounds like a cat stuck in a drain," and Remus nodded sagely.

"Well, count yourself lucky – I've got to hang out with Noted Fascist Snape. He's worked out some maths shite to be put on large banners. Honestly, why the fuck did we agree to this play? But then it's lunchtime, and we can hold hands in our little smoking cubby – "

"We didn't actually," Sirius reminded him, locking the front door behind them. "James agreed to do the play, remember? Lily said if he did a good play and won the footie, and then did alright with the GCSE lot, she'd fuck him. Not in so many words – I think she was looking for an excuse to say yes to him – but it's something to do with teaching him the value of perseverance. And we're doing it – "

"Dare I suggest," Remus said, stamping his feet to warm them, "a little mutiny in the ranks?" They turned the corner, road busy with school kids and stinking of weed. The sky was grey and swollen with snow

"I love it when you talk dirty," Sirius said, solemnly. "But alas, we're so close. Four days until opening night, onwards and upwards, all that. Blitz spirit and stuff," he added, and Remus laughed, and pulled him close to kiss him. A snowflake drifted past them, and then another, and another.

"Get in there!" yelled a year twelve as she loped past holding hands with a year thirteen girl, and Sirius raised an eyebrow until Remus snorted and kissed him again, as soft as the snow that was floating from the clouds.

"I really do love you," Sirius said, quietly.

"You're a sap, Sirius Black," Remus told him, and smiled, eyes dark and wicked. "I love you too."

Year seven declared war on year eight, with year nine provided sarcastic commentary. A group of Slytherin boys built themselves, in the snow that fast covered the playing fields, a snow-cave. Waving a PE shirt, they called for a ceasefire, and then hurled the entire contents of their depot at Gryffindor. By break, there were three black eyes and one Gryffindor girl shoved snow down Snape's back, earning herself exclusion from the play, and by lunchtime Melody Griffiths had stopped singing in English and started swearing in a stream of Welsh.

"My mother was Welsh," Remus said, looking up at the sound. Sirius looked over to him, and his fingers itched with the urge to hold him, but instead he nodded.

"I'm sorry," he said, and Remus blinked twice and shrugged.

"She would have been so proud of you," Sirius went on. "I mean, the way you were brought up, and how you were when she and your da fostered you – and look at you now. I'm bloody proud of you. Boyfriends and mothers should always be proud," and Remus reached out to curl one finger around the cuff of Sirius's posh jumper.

"Love you," he said out of the corner of his mouth, and Sirius felt his heart leap.

"Sap," he said fondly, and Remus smiled, and turned his attention back to the stage.

"Right, you lot. I know it's very exciting that it's snowing, but we've got a play to put on. You all know your lines, which is very good, if terrifying. Music lot – how's it coming along?"

Felicity Buckle stood up, holding a flute. "Good thanks sir, as long as it's filmed for the GCSE stuff," and he nodded.

"Chemistry have delivered us some potions, which Merlin – Mr. Braithwaite, doing a marvellous Dumbledore impression – will be using to create flashes and bangs and whatnot. It's all coming together, isn't it?" He said, turning to Sirius.

"It looks great," said Sirius simply. "When it's over, I hope to slip into a coma," and Remus laughed and elbowed him, and Melody Griffiths stood up and suddenly her voice was in tune and mellifluous and out of the windows of the hall, the mountains and crags were snow-covered, and Sirius closed his eyes for a second and saw the Seeing Stone, heard the cheer of a crowd so desperate they'd crown a boy-king barely able to shave, and that great lake of legend stretching far into his imagination. He shivered. "It's going to be the best production we've ever done," he said, seriously. Remus smiled.

The night before the play, crammed round the little table in Remus's kitchen and eating vegetarian chilli, Sirius went over his lesson plans for the next week and James and Lily talked about Boadicea. They had discovered, at the last pub quiz of the Christmas term, that she had always been a hero of hers, and James had endeavoured to learn all about her, and it was teeth-rottingly sweet. She had taught herself more about Alfred the Great. Peter offered to help Dorcas and Marlene wash up, but was dispatched instead to the garden to pick some herbs for what was generally assumed to be some sort of ritual. Remus flicked through _Morte d'Arthur_ one last time until he sighed, at which point Sirius passed him a cigarette.

"Anyone want a fag?" he said, standing up and feeling a wave of exhaustion crash over him. Remus took his hand, and when everybody murmured in the negative, they sloped outside to the little garden, full of herbs and strange, twisted-looking plants.

"That's nightshade," Remus said, pointing at one, but in the dark Sirius could hardly see it. "Poisonous – the girls grow lots of that, but I've forbidden it anywhere near the herb garden. They've put a hex on Snape, you'll be pleased to know," and Sirius laughed and lit their cigarettes and they sat at the tiny table, looking up at the moon.

"It'll be cold tonight," Sirius said. "Cold, and a full moon – creepy. I bet you knew that though, you weather _nerd_ ," and he exhaled a long stream of smoke that drifted up towards the stars. "I've seen those tattoos you have of the moon, remember? I've seen every tattoo – "

"Not _every_ tattoo," Remus said, smugly. "We've not had the time or the energy for actual sex for about two days, so I took the opportunity and a long lunch break yesterday and got a new one, and you're not to see it until after the play," and he laughed as Sirius exclaimed and nudged him, and pulled him close to kiss him.

"We've not had sex," Sirius whispered, "but we've had some amazing blowjobs, and I've been thinking about that thing you do with your tongue every second I'm awake – "

"That can be repeated," Remus said, sucking a bruise into Sirius's collarbone. "Depends, though."

"Depends on what?" Sirius asked, wriggling his way across the bench until he was sat in Remus's lap. "I warn you, I'm at risk of becoming all whiny and needy – "

"This _isn't_ being needy?" Remus asked, voice deepening with lust. "I mean, I'd hate to see you needy – "

"You'd love it," accused Sirius, reaching between them to stroke Remus through his jeans.

"That I would," Remus agreed, pulling Sirius's hair with his other hand. "It all depends, however," and he pulled back a little, enough to see Sirius's pout in the moonlight, "on whether you'll make brownies for the cast of the play, and also hash brownies for us, because your brownies are enough almost to convince me of the existence of a God," and Sirius laughed and kissed him.

"Consider it done," he said, and Remus took his hand and pulled him after him upstairs, and in his little bedroom surrounded by books Remus, with his clever hand and cleverer tongue, made Sirius howl.

The morning of the play was frosty; not only had the night got cold enough to leave the car windows and pavement sparkling, but Peter and James had clearly had an argument overnight and were ignoring each other in the staff room. Sirius cornered James coming out of the gents. "What the hell is going on?" he hissed, and James rolled his eyes.

"Peter suggested that not only do we all have a duty to try to get him a girlfriend, but that any girl who did _not_ want to go out with him is ugly, or something. He seems to have turned into a bit of a men's rights activist since we all fell in love with people. Jealousy, or something?" James explained, wiping his hands on his trousers.

"Ah," Sirius said. "I saw him talking to Snape the other day. You don't think – "

"Think they're _friends_? Don't be repulsive. I'm sure it's nothing, but we need to keep an eye on him. I don't know if I want to find him a girlfriend at this rate, because he's being such a dickhead that he'd treat her like shit." James paused, breathing heavily. "He's also gone a bit – well, not homophobic, but he's been muttering about how _open_ you and Remus are. Not really sure what to make of it all – maybe it's the pressure of exams? He's got some kids doing retakes. He's always felt a bit thick compared to us, you know he has – "

"Yeah but that's not an excuse for being a tosspot," Sirius said, reasonably. "I want to punch his lights out," and James grabbed his arm.

"We're teachers," he reminded him. "We'll give him time. I mean, he might get over it. It might just be a tantrum – "

"We need to focus on the play," Sirius said, vision still red-tinged. "We need to – we need to focus on the play," he repeated, and James nodded.

"We'll talk to him afterwards. There's too much at stake. Benjy Fenwick's in pieces and he's only a sub at the moment – "

"Right, right, let's focus," Sirius muttered, and they headed towards the hall, where the cast – seemingly half the school – were gathered.

Time flew, in that weird way that time does when it would be far more helpful if they approached light-speed and relativity kicked in and it slowed instead. Sirius found himself zoning out of rehearsals, daydreaming about Remus in some sort of regency costume, maybe involving leather riding boots, jumping off a horse or walking out of a lake in a wet shirt –

James slammed the lyrics book down in front of him, waking him with a start. "You're dribbling," he said, and Sirius swore and wiped his mouth.

"It was drooling, actually," he said, taking a sip of now-cold tea. "Besides, I didn't get much sleep – "

"I heard," James said, grimacing. "The noises of the act itself were enough, but then you swearing and doing god-knows-what with the headboard – at least Remus was silent," and Sirius looked at him smugly until he worked it out and clapped his hands to his eyes, rubbing them as if it would clear the mental picture in his head.

"I don't know why you're looking so disgusted," Sirius said. "You've heard it all before, and anyway I know Lily likes putting her fingers – "

"Enough," James said, weakly. "You need to stop falling asleep. I've got Perkins to get us some coffee, which he's more than grateful to do since he has apparently caused what has only been whispered about as a _calamity_ with the projector. Curtains go up in three hours, so I've ordered about nine thousand pizzas and the kids have eaten their body weight in cheese. Fuck Jamie Oliver, the mousy-haired fuck."

"Where's Remus?" Sirius asked, looking for him amongst the groups of children. It was strange to see girls in dresses and chainmail, and boys in dresses and chainmail, eating pizza and texting.

"He's gone home," James said. "You forgot to bring the brownies in, and I think he forgot his medication this morning – speaking of which, you _have_ been taking yours, haven't you?"

"Yes, yes, and I can drink on it, we know this – can I pop back to check on him? I left them in our kitchen, _shit_ , he hasn't got a key – "

"He's strangely good at picking locks, but I gave him mine. Half an hour then, run back or we'll use you instead of the dummy in the stocks scene," and Sirius grabbed his jacket and half-ran, half-flew back to his house.

Remus was in the kitchen, sitting on the floor with his head in his hands. "Remus?" he said, gently. Remus looked up; he had been crying, but now he was breathing far too fast, and his eyes were unfocused. "Remus, I want you to breathe with me," he said, and slowed his breathing. Remus took a jagged, shuddering breath – more of a gasp – and clutched at Sirius's hand, but he was still breathing too quickly.

"Okay," Sirius said, sitting down next to Remus. "You're having a panic attack – shit, I'm sorry, I imagine you know that – but I want you to breathe in with me, for a count of ten. Alright?" and he inhaled, as slowly as he'd inhale a spliff, and Remus nodded mutely and breathed with him, breath still juddering. They breathed out, and Remus relaxed his tightened shoulders a little, and closed his eyes again. On the next breath, Remus reached out to hold both of his hands properly and clammily. "Okay," Sirius said again, and Remus leant back a little, and wiped his eyes with his hand.

"Fucking hell," he said shakily. "Thought I was going to die for a minute. Silly, I know – "

"Hey hey," Sirius said. "You've seen me take my medication, right? I'm never going to think you're silly. In fact, I think you're rather wonderful, but you're still a bit stressed because you've gone delightfully northern – "

Remus laughed, pressing his lips to the back of Sirius's hand. "I'm just a bit – it's the play, you know? I mean, it's all so _much_ and it's still only the spring term and this has been happening for a whole, and I was too afraid to tell you, and then we've got exams – " and his breathing was getting faster until he visibly forced himself to breathe more slowly, eyes locked with Sirius's. "Sorry," he said, and Sirius nodded.

"Don't say sorry, please. Would it make you feel any better if we skipped the play? There are four more performances, and the kids will understand – "

"I can't let them down," Remus said, eyes wide. "I don't want – "

"Hey," Sirius said. "Thinking about it, actually. Lily wanted this whole thing to be done by James, right? I mean, as we both know they're disgustingly in love, but the _quest_ won't be completed unless it's James who puts on the play. The kids know how much work we put into it, and so did James, but I know you. I know you don't like being in the spotlight – "

"You do," said Remus, in a low voice. "You love it – "

"I love you more," Sirius said fiercely. "I love you more, and I'd much rather sit on the kitchen floor with you and discuss the demerits of the _Hobbit_ films than sit through one more rehearsal of the play. Go and get comfy on the sofa, love. I'll give James a quick ring," and he kissed Remus on the forehead before getting up, and pulling Remus up with him before propelling him towards the door.

Flicking the kettle on, he pulled his phone out of his pocket, hit speed dial, and James picked up almost immediately. "Alright mate," he said, cheerfully, pulling out two chipped mugs from the cupboard. "So, just saw Remus, and he's been having panic attacks for what must be ages. He didn't want to admit to it, but – "

"Stay at home with him," James said immediately. "Honestly, don't worry. The kids know how much you two have done, and you can come another time if he's feeling up to it – "

Sirius smiled, sending a silent prayer to the heavens for putting he and James in the same French class. "Thank you so much. I'm sorry – "

"Don't apologise, make sure he's alright. Get him some chocolate and maybe a white hot chocolate, he likes them – "

"With little sprinkles on top, yeah, got it. Thank you so much, honestly. Plus side – I get to cuddle him, we can discuss Legolas looking weird in the _Hobbit_ , and you can tell Lily you did a brilliant play – " He shoved two teabags into the cups, poured the water in, and went hunting for the milk and the chocolate.

"Lily knows it was all you two," James said, sounding amused. "She wanted me to pass on actually that if you two ever have a child, you'll raise them to be terrifyingly well-rounded and brilliant, which is a lovely if alarming sentiment. Maybe get a dog first – "

"Piss off back to your play," Sirius said, grinning. "Love you, I'll see you later. I'll get some disgusting beers in for you and Lily for later. Break a leg, and all that – "

"Don't say that," James muttered, "the pulley system was looking a bit ropey, and before you say that's the point I'm off. Love you. Best to Remus," and he hung up. Sirius found a tray ( _Beautiful Dorset_ , it proclaimed, which meant it was Peter's, and his thoughts turned to that predicament before he refocused) and stuck the teas on it, as well as some chocolate buttons, and headed through to the living room.

"Alright love," he said, passing Remus a cup. Remus was curled up on the sofa, but when Sirius sat down he shifted until they were close enough that Sirius could smell his shower gel. "How are you feeling?"

"Bit shit," said Remus, matter-of-factly, "but lots better now that you're here," and Sirius kissed him.

"I will have to pop out in about three hours, to deliver the brownies," he said sadly, and Remus tugged him closer.

"I'll come with you," he said, and kissed Sirius before he could object. "I'm sure," he went on, taking a sip from his tea. "I want to see how it went myself. Thank you for – for not being a dick," he muttered, burying his nose in his cup.

"If I don't take my medication in the right dose," said Sirius, "I tend to go completely loopy. Actually when I was first seeing the doctor, they thought it was depression until the antidepressants sent me manic and off to Manchester on some wild idea about the northern powerhouse; James found me, having given all my money to some homeless girls. But enough of that, medication is a wonderful thing, I am happy and in love," and Remus hummed against his lips and then sat up.

"I've queued up the first _Hobbit_ film, which I think is the second-weakest," he said. "Or, since it is sort of play day, you could see my new tattoo – "

"We can do whatever you want," Sirius promised, and watched Remus's eyes darken.

"You can see my new tattoo," he said, and went to shrug off his t-shirt. "Do you think – "

"Do I want you to fuck me on the sofa? Remus, you can fuck me pretty much anywhere and I wouldn't complain. I want you to fuck me all the time," he added, earnestly, tugging at Remus's t-shirt.

"Sounds tiring," Remus said, smirking, and kissed him, bringing his hands up to pull at Sirius's hair; Sirius went pliant, and then kissed him harder, biting at his lip and tugging at his t-shirt again. "Nope," Remus told him, holding his hands down. "You can only see the tattoo – " and he gasped, as Sirius turned his attention and his lips to Remus's exposed collarbone – "when I say you can," and Sirius whined against his lips but did not question it. "Good boy," Remus whispered, and Sirius half-squirmed his way on Remus's lap.

"I want to ride you," he said, breathlessly. "I want – I want to feel every inch of you inside me and _fuck_ , fuck, I've missed this, it's been two days and I'm so easy for you and – "

Remus kissed him again, pulled at his jeans and his boxers until they were on the floor. "I'd love to see that. You know, when you get turned on – " and he reached out to pull at Sirius's t-shirt, dragging it off over his head and sending his hair even wilder – "that your entire chest flushes?" and he kissed Sirius's neck, and the space between his collarbones, and then down his chest and muscled waist, and then nudged Sirius until he moved far back enough that Remus could bury his thumbs in the hollows of Sirius's hips and slide to his knees on the floor and look at Sirius's cock, red and leaking. He reached out a hand to touch it, and Sirius's whole body jerked.

"Please," he said, and he sounded wrecked already. "Remus, please, _please_ ," and Remus smiled and leant forwards to take him in his mouth; Sirius groaned, too loudly for the small space, and reached out to put his hands in Remus's hair, and Remus licked along the underside of his cock and closed his eyes and felt Sirius half-buck and wriggle above him, and in what felt like no time at all Sirius threw his head back and said "Remus, I – " and he came, hot and wet and filthy, and Remus swallowed it all and thought about how he loved even this taste and Sirius was half-whispering his name like a prayer, and Remus opened his eyes and drew back, swallowing again, lips swollen.

"You taste so good," he said, and Sirius reached out to drag him back onto the sofa and kissed his head, his neck, his chest.

"Fucking hell," he said. "I love you, ever mentioned it?" and Remus laughed and kissed his forehead.

"Where were we?" Remus asked, reaching out to switch on the light. Sirius muttered something, still breathing heavily, and bit his neck. "I think," said Remus, slowly, "I was about to show you my new tattoo. I think you're going to like it – it's quite _personal_ , you see. One might say it represents a _serious_ commitment – "

"It's not my face, is it?" Sirius asked, grinning. Remus smacked him on the arse, and raised an eyebrow at the moan which Sirius let out.

"It's not your face, but we're certainly going to explore how much you reacted to that," and Sirius kissed him and pulled at his t-shirt, and this time Remus let him. "It's on my ribs," he said, suddenly shy, and reached out to pull off the covering.

Sirius sat back, eyes wide. "Fucking hell, is that – is that what I think it is?"

"What do you think it is?" Remus asked, as Sirius leaned forwards to kiss his neck.

"Well, it looks like _Canis Major_ , the dog star, the one with - the one with Sirius in – " and when Remus nodded he kissed him again and again and again. "Thank you," he managed, finally. "Nobody – nobody ever really seemed to want me around, before. This is the most romantic thing anybody has ever done for me – really, you – you're so fucking lovely," he said fervently, kissing Remus again. "Thank you."

"Well," Remus said, "it only seemed fair, since you know, I've half moved in here and all. You might not have noticed this, but James has been spending a lot more time at Lily's, and I've been spending so much time here, that he suggested I move in here. So I have been slowly shifting my stuff across – very slowly, at a glacial pace you understand – so that you wouldn't be alone, if he moves out slowly," and Sirius kissed him again.

"I did wonder," he said, grinning, "whether I'd bought that hideous cactus, but I'd chalked it up to a potential mania spending-spree thing – "

"She's called Hilary and she's a trans cactus – "

"You're a fucking Guardian-reading cliché," accused Sirius, laughing against his lips, and what was a gentle kiss turned into his hands in Remus's lap and Remus's hands in his hair, and then Sirius arched his back, and shifted, and said "Please fuck me, you did _promise_ –" so politely that Remus could only laugh and kiss him and find the lube from where it had fallen down the side of the sofa and, pressing him back into the sofa and moving Sirius's legs to his shoulders, work him open so slowly with fingers and tongue that by the time Sirius was ready, he was also hard again.

"You're eager," Remus, pulling back and looking slightly silly with Sirius's _Wallace and Gromit_ covered-feet adorning his shoulders, and Sirius looked up at him, eyes blown with lust and muscles shaking with desire, and Remus swore and flipped them over – almost falling off the sofa – so that Sirius was sat on top of him. "Earlier," Remus said, "you were all sorts of desperate about wanting to ride me. And honestly, the view it would give me of you – your muscles, your hair falling in your face, the way your eyelids flutter – would be enough to keep me satiated on memory alone for a hundred lifetimes – are you still interested?" and he slid a finger back where it belonged, crooked it, and was rewarded when he heard Sirius's breath hitch.

"Yes," breathed Sirius, and he lowered himself onto Remus's cock, which was so hard he was impressed his brain was still functioning, and half-hissed at the burn he loved so much. "Move," he said, and Remus did, and Sirius twisted his hips and started to mutter, all the things he loved about Remus, all the thoughts he'd ever had about him, and Remus shifted them slightly and Sirius tilted until the angle was perfect and his vision washed white for a second, and then Remus moved faster and faster and Sirius reached down to stroke himself and at the sight, Remus's entire body stiffened and he came with a shout and kept fucking Sirius through it until Sirius let go and his whole brain went blank and everything was Remus and pleasure and he realised, quite suddenly, that Remus was the best thing that ever happened to him, and when he said so Remus smiled and pulled him close.

"Sticky," he said, unable to manage sentences much longer than that, and Sirius laughed and handed him a t-shirt from the pile on the floor.

"I love you," he reminded him, and watched Remus's entire torso blush. "How are you feeling?" Remus looked at him, and blinked, and took another half-minute before he answered.

"How am I feeling, he asks. Well, I just came so hard that I think I blacked out for a second there, and I'm with the person I love most in the world, so I'm pretty chipper – "

"No, I mean about earlier," Sirius clarified, stroking Remus's cheek. "Are you – "

"I'll be fine now," Remus said. "Not that sex is a cure of course – but I've got you, and you understand. I might never get better – "

"I don't care," Sirius said. "I love you exactly as you are," and then he snorted. "I'm quoting fucking _Bridget Jones_ at you but I don't care, as it is an excellent film," and Remus laughed.

"It is, isn't it? I think I've got it on my laptop – and actually, you've made me laugh more in the past few hours than I have all week. I have a tendency to – to take on too much, and then panic about doing it all, and then I end up crying on the kitchen floor like a baby – "

"Let's watch _Bridget Jones_ ," Sirius told him, and they did.


	4. Chapter 4

"You got a write-up in the Daily Mail," Snape sneered, shoving a crumpled paper across the table. "And I know you won't bother reading it, so I did. They said it was "a play as strong as Corbyn's shadow cabinet, and even more disjointed", which I have highlighted. And there is a suggestion that you're mentally ill, which we know anyway –"

James snatched the paper and shoved the front page into his mouth, and then failed to swallow it and spat it back into his hand. Coughing, he wiped at his mouth. "Well," he said, "it's not news then, is it? And if it took them until April to publish it, well. It's bullshit." He lobbed the crumpled page into the bin.

"There is a suggestion," Snape said, "from a teacher at this school, who is unnamed in the article," and he took a sip of tea, "that we are all at risk from Dumbledore's woolly-headed liberalism. And that it is to the detriment of the pupils to have mentally ill teachers, that you're a bad example," and he nodded at Remus. Sirius stood, scraping the chair-legs on the staffroom floor.

"And having a scumbag bigot for a maths teacher doesn't add up either, does it?" he said. "Or a teacher who never washes his fucking hair, who sets thirteen-year-olds Fermat's last theorem as a pre-homework brain teaser, who dresses like a bloody undertaker –"

"You're not one to talk about fashion sense," Peter said from the corner. The room fell silent and the silence stretched like thinly-scraped butter over cooling toast and James stood up as well.

"Hang on a minute," he said. "Did you just stick up for Snape? Bloody hell, is this because we laughed at geography?"

Peter shrugged, lip twisted as if he'd just eaten a load of sherbet. "He's got a fair point. We're being laughed at in the national press, because that Lockhart idiot went to the papers to get his byline and his picture on the front page. And you're all sticking your heads in the sand and pretending that we can all hold hands in a socialist utopia and nobody will complain about you two shagging, or the fact that you've both been in psychiatric hospitals. And that Dumbledore will be head here forever and the new head will be just as accepting. Well, I don't think so. And this school is being damaged by it, and our reputation is – "

"Are you still talking?" demanded Lily, scowling at him. "We're a school. Nothing more, nothing less. We should be teaching kids that they can get jobs, have careers, find love, no matter who they are. We should be examples of tolerance and equality and acceptance, not hate. Who gives a fuck what the press say?" She shifted until she could put a hand on Remus's shoulder.

The bell rang for afternoon classes. The room emptied, apart from Remus and Sirius.

"Don't listen to Snape and Peter," Sirius said, fiercely. "They've been reading that awful blog again, Tom Riddle's, you know? The one with a column in half the papers in the country. They're trying to look tough. I suspect they're both Leave voters," and Remus huffed out a laugh.

"I love you," he said to Sirius in a low voice, and Sirius kissed the top of his head.

"Come on then, loverboy," he said. Remus looked up, and smiled, and kissed him.

"I suppose we've got some minds to pollute."

Class that afternoon sped by, as quickly as the early spring storms had been and gone, and as quickly as the green leaves bursting onto the trees. That night, Remus and Sirius were sat in Sirius's kitchen, watching James angrily making a spaghetti Bolognese, and then Lily turned up with a pot plant she'd got from the market by the railway station, still furious.

"How fucking _dare_ Peter?" she said, marching in and presenting Remus with the plant. "It's a succulent, so even you should be able to keep it alive. We can always ask Frank Longbottom," and she pulled off her woolly hat. "Was Peter always this much of a fuckwit?"

Sirius tilted his head slightly. "I think he has changed recently. He was always fairly parochial in his outlook but I thought that was because he came from a tiny village with one bicycle and she'd never sleep with him. He always resented us for being, well – "

"Handsome?" said Remus. "Clever, witty, charming?"

James shoved some spaghetti into a pan. "He always thought we looked down on him because he isn't as fortunate in life as we are," he said, glasses steaming up from the kettle. "But he never seemed to have a problem with Sirius's sexuality, or the mental illness thing – "

"Or maybe he never mentioned it? We knew he had some slightly alarmingly neckbeardy attitudes to women, but we figured he'd grow out of it," Sirius said, leaping up to grate some Sainsburys knock-off Parmesan. "And," he added, "he was always a good teacher, but his year tens all scraped Cs in their mocks, even the genius ones. So he seems distracted. Fuck, maybe he was that _unnamed teacher_ in the article. We need to get the Phoenix back up and running."

"That's not a bad idea, actually," Remus said. "Maybe after exams, I've got a thousand and one PPQs to mark this week alone. But we should start it back up, making get the unions involved – a lefty liberal loon's newspaper. Mental health in teaching is underreported and under… helped. I lost the thread of that one, but we could do that," and he took a sip from his glass of wine.

"With the right-wing press gathering momentum, and more and more kids getting scared – Tomasz Wozniak said his mum's been getting abuse in the streets – we could do something really great here," Lily said. "A sort of Private Eye/Libération hybrid, maybe?"

"First of all," James reminded them, "and loathe as I am to be the voice of reason, we have exams. A month to go until A-levels, and I doubt my history class know anything at all about the Russian revolution. And nor do they care. Come on, dinner," and they ambled over to collect their food.

As they ate, Sirius kept one hand tightly on Remus's thigh, which made eating spaghetti difficult but was worth it for how Remus blushed.

"Okay, you lot," said Remus, riffling through a battered copy of _Tess of the d'Urbervilles._ "Today I'll probably be giving you all some more past paper questions to do, because at this stage practice is the best thing you can do, but first of all I wanted to remind you that you will be discussing this in relation to the pastoral. And the most important feature of the pastoral is, Sama – "

"Contrasts, and opposites?" she said, straightening her hijab. "Light and dark, innocence and experience, nature and manmade? Idealism and realism, _et in arcadia ego_ , a lost time and a lost youth. And then, turning away from that, people like Auden use it ironically."

"Nice one," Remus told her. "I would give you a gold star but I'm all out, sadly. I can offer vegetarian marshmallows," and he handed her the box.

"I didn't know you're a vegetarian, sir?" asked Finn from the back of the room. "Is it Mr. Black's fault?"

Remus laughed. "Enough about my personal life, Finn – but no, I'm not a vegetarian. I eat mostly vegetarian food though, but I figured vegetarian stuff would mean that more people could eat it, regardless of any dietary restrictions." He smiled.

"Mr. Black says you're a muesli-wearing cliché, and he's bloody right. Actually, Snape says the same but he says it in a very different way," Finn said, taking the proffered marshmallow.

"Anyway," Remus said, waving his book at the class, "we have two weeks until the exam. You're on study leave by rights, aren't you? Why are you all here?"

"We like your teaching," Sama said, and she grinned. "Plus my little brother's teething and he's grizzling all the time, so it's better to come here really," and then she looked a little sheepish. "And I do maths as well, but if I revise in Snape's room it's really loud – could I use your room?"

Remus shrugged. "Of course, as long as you don't disturb the others. There's the library as well, although I have it on good authority that Mrs Pince won't let you take even bottles of water in there. Feel free to sit here and enjoy the arcane delights of maths," and by that Friday she had taken the maths exam and emerged, pale and clammy, to the bright May sunshine and her English books.

James had sat himself in the corner of Lily's room, hiding from a fourteen-year-old Stormfront reader and future Holocaust denier, and was gazing enraptured at the way the various potions and lotions threw up rainbow highlights in her hair. "You're staring again," she said, trying to stifle her smile.

"I can't help it," he said. "But, light of my life, can I ask if your lab bench is supposed to be on fire?"

It was not supposed to be on fire, but after a deluge of fire extinguisher and swearing, it seemed mostly contained. They went to lunch, and sat in the canteen next to a gaggle of year nine girls clearly interested in their relationship. The day sped away, until James rounded the corner and came across Sirius sat with his head wrapped in his arms, curled up against the floor of his classroom.

"Hey," he said. "What's up? Want me to get Remus?" and Sirius sniffed and nodded, but clutched at his arm when he went to leave.

"I'll text him," Sirius mumbled into his sleeve, but did not move, so James dug his phone from his pocket and texted Remus from his own phone. Sirius watched, but did not move, and James reached out to pull him into a hug. "I just. I don't know what it is, if it's the Snape thing or the newspaper thing, but all of a sudden I feel a bit rubbish. Completely rubbish, actually. I am a landfill," and he choked out a laugh. "I don't know what Remus sees in me," he said, very quietly.

"Have you been taking your medication?" James asked, scanning Sirius for any signs of damage. "How low are you feeling? Are we talking about – "

"I've been taking my meds," Sirius said, in a voice that might sound angry if it were louder. "Not every bad mood is _that_ , you know. I'm so worried my classes will do badly. Except they're all brilliant and they work hard, and in a way I'm jealous of them for their youth, you know? They get to live for the first time and all we can do is watch ourselves get older and greyer and uglier – "

"You'll never be ugly, silly," James said. "And I understand what you mean, and I know where you're coming from, but you're a good teacher. And Remus loves you, and I love you, and my parents love you and Lily loves you. Your entire class is _in_ love with you, and I don't blame them."

"Are you coming onto me?" said Sirius, a little less morosely. "I have a boyfriend, you know. I'm just also very aware of the crushing inevitability of death – "

"Has he been listening to My Chemical Romance again?" asked Remus, appearing round the corner. "I've tried to stop him from doing that. He listens to them in the bath, it's all very embarrassing," and he sat down on the floor as well. "I love you," he said to Sirius.

Sirius sniffed. "I love you both. In very different ways, of course," he added. "Thank you. Sorry, I'm not – not quite sure what that was," and he scrubbed at his eyes. Remus kissed him on the cheek.

"Well, I think you were due a meltdown. James screamed for five minutes at a potato the other day," Remus told him.

James elbowed him in the ribs. "Yeah, and you tried to convince me that the greatest film of all time is _not_ _Top Gun_ , which I would have thought would be right up your street given that it's got lots of half-naked men in it – "

"First of all, the greatest film of all time is _Withnail and I_ ," said Sirius, firmly. "But Remus thinks that the best film is _Girl, Interrupted_ which tallies with neither of our impressions of mental health treatment – "

"It has a good soundtrack," James allowed. "But if you're into that hipster shit, surely you like Wes Anderson?"

"I have a yellow teapot because it's very evocative of his aesthetic," Remus admitted, and Sirius laughed.

"I think, gang," he said, "that we are long overdue a pizza and films night. Sleepover at mine?"

"I live at yours, idiot," Remus said, and kissed him. "As long as we get something with pineapple on, I'm game."

James cried four times during _The Royal Tenenbaums_ , and Remus got so maudlin when watching _Dead Poets Society_ that they had to put on _Grease_ and Lily arrived just in time to sing along with every single song, and if Remus reached out to hold Sirius's hand during "Hopelessly Devoted to You", nobody commented on that. And Lily wiped her eyes surreptitiously on James's shoulder as they got in the car at the end that flies, but nobody commented on that, or the flying car.

The exams approached, coming over the horizon bristling with spears and questions about UCAS and clearing and retakes. They seemed to be over in minutes, months of preparation and tears and the occasional meltdown distilled into two questions and a wobbly seat in the exam hall. And then summer was streaming past, bright blue skies and soft breezes and Remus in a pair of hideous red shorts and nothing else, sunbathing in the garden until he tanned. Sirius, pale as ever and haughty about it, smothering himself in suncream and then helping Lily with the back of her neck, where he was delighted to see that she had a green eye tattooed. "Xenophilius talked me into it," was all she would say. And ice-creams and spliffs smoked out the window or up the chimney when they were too lazy to get out of bed and put clothes on, and then all of a sudden it was results day.

Remus was up half the night, too anxious to sleep, and fretting and biting his nails until they were bleeding. Sirius sat with him and rubbed his back and made him endless cups of tea until at last Remus dozed off, and by 8am they had heard that Hogwarts had got the highest state-school results in the county and got dressed and headed into school, both unshaven. Sirius had visible teeth-marks on his throat, half-hidden by his collar. The hall was crammed with teenagers hugging each other, waving their cream pieces of paper around, talking to reporters, and a few were in tears. McGonagall headed to the crying ones with a packet of biscuits. Frank Longbottom was also in tears after being presented with some sort of tree from his biology class, and Remus's A2 class swarmed him to give him a signed copy of Terry Pratchett's _Guards! Guards_ and tickets to Cadbury World.

"Fourteen kids from single-parent families have got into Russell group unis," James said to Sirius as Remus loped back over. "And Phillip Baxter, the one who was in hospital all last year, beat his target grades. Thank fuck for that," he added, passing them a cup of tea each. "Christ, I barely slept, I was so worried – and then I find out Mairead Massey got the highest history mark the school has ever seen! Christ alive," and he took a long sip of his tea.

"We made it," Remus said, quietly. "Well, not that it's about us at all, but we made it, didn't we? My first year at Hogwarts, down. I assume that we'll all be going to the pub quiz later?"

So they did.


End file.
